Marie-Chloé Duval, a former criminologist, is a New York based painter who maps the unseen architectures of human connection. In her work, movement, perception, and social structures collide within fragmented, evolving compositions.
Art Statement
Working in oil, I develop layered compositions that oscillate between figuration and abstraction. Forms emerge, dissolve, and intersect, creating spatial tensions that resist fixed interpretation. These shifting structures reflect the instability of the frameworks that shape contemporary life.
My practice examines how social realities are constructed, perceived, and internalized. Informed by my background in academia in criminology, I approach painting as a space of inquiry—where systems of power, behavior, and belonging can be observed, questioned, and reconfigured.
Each piece operates as a psychological landscape, mapping human presence through traces of construction, erasure, and resistance. Through processes of accumulation and disruption, visual environments are built where control and fluidity coexist. Each work becomes a site where perception is unsettled, inviting a slower engagement with what is seen and what remains obscured.
My paintings do not aim to resolve, but to hold complexity—offering a space to consider how we locate ourselves within the systems we both inhabit and produce.
Biography
Marie-Chloé Duval is a Canadian-born, New York–based visual artist, educator, and arts leader with a distinguished international career. Since committing to painting full-time in 2016, she has exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions across North America and Europe, received multiple awards, and completed prestigious artist residencies.
Beyond her studio practice, Duval is a dedicated advocate for the arts: she has served on multiple boards, curated exhibitions, led community initiatives, and founded an alternative art space that champions emerging and underrepresented artists. She is also an experienced educator, teaching and mentoring across age groups and disciplines.
Duval holds degrees in Criminology (BA, MA) form Montreal University, a BFA from Concordia University, and an MFA from the New York Studio School, combining rigorous scholarship with a visionary approach to contemporary art practice.
Education
2023–25 MFA – Fine Arts, painting and drawing, New-York Studio School, New-York, Usa
2020–23 BACC – Fine Arts, painting and drawing, Concordia Universitym Montreal, Can
2014–2016 MSc – Criminology research, University of Montreal, Montreal, Can
2010–2013 BACC – Criminology, University of Montreal, Montreal, Can
Solo exhibition - selection
Architecture of human ties, Union gallery at Wagner College, NYC, Usa, 2026
The evidence, New-York Studio School, NYC, Usa, 2025
The fullness of the emptiness, BEKA museum, NYC, Usa, 2025
The evidence of us, Art Gohtam gallery, NYC, Usa, 2025
Systèmes solitaires, Maison de la culture Villebon, Beloeil, Can , 2024
Lost Human Found Jungle, Nicolas Auvray Gallery, NYC, Usa, 2023
Malgré les marées, Valence art gallery, Montreal, Can, 2023
We are here, Wagner college Spotlight gallery, NYC, Usa, 2023
Group exhibition - selection
Root-Place, NYSS project space, Curator Merewyn Wirth, NYC, Usa, 2026
Assertion, Nicolas Auvray Gallery, NYC, Usa, 2025
100 works, Kentler international drawing space, NYC, Usa, 2025
Alumni Exhibition, Mercedes Matters, New-York Studio School, NYC, Usa, 2025
Elements of the anthopocene: rebirth and decay, Dorothy circus, London, UK, 2025
I belong (t)here, Eye on arts, juried show at 7house gallery, NYC, Usa, 2025
Context Art fair, Nicolas Auvray Gallery, Miami, Usa, 2024
Close up from Afar, Westbeth Gallery, NYC, Usa, 2024
Art on paper fair NYC, Nicolas Auvray Gallery, NYC, Usa, 2024
Convergence, Du soi au Nous, Valence art galerie, Montreal, Can, 2024
Anonymus was a master piece, New York Studio School, NYC, Usa, 2024
Encan annuel, Eco Musée fier du Monde Montreal, Canada, 2024
Metempsychosis, Atamian Hovsepian Curatorial Practice, NYC, Usa, 2024
Exposition bénéfice, Musée du Bas-St-Laurent Rivière-du-Loup, Can, 2024
A member’s selection, Provincetown Art Association Museum, Provincetown, Usa, 2024
