Martin Bureau uses the mediums of painting, video installation, and documentary film to examine the intersection of art and politics. Inspired by world events, his work offers a candid and critical statement on the social, economic, and cultural issues that surround us.

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Bureau’s pictorial work, inspired by painting achievements in art history, is based on powerful images encountered during his extensive travels (to Cuba, China, Israel, Ireland, and Palestine, among others). In his compositions combining drawing, painting, drawing, and transparency, extremes meet and evoke a sense of tension where aesthetic and conceptual concerns clash. Notions of colonialism, catastrophe, and entropy are recurring themes in his body of work.

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Bureau’s works have been exhibited in both public and private collections, including those of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, the Santiago Museum of Contemporary Art (Chile), the World Expo in Shanghai (China), the Lacerte Gallery, L’Œil de poisson, as well as in Toronto at the Nicholas Metivier, Lonsdale, and Drabinsky galleries. His works are not only prized by private collectors, but have also been collected by  the Musée National des Beaux-arts du Québec, the Musée du Bas-Saint-Laurent (Rivière-du-Loup), the Musée d’art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul, the Desjardins Group, the National Assembly of Quebec, SSQ, SAJO, and the cities of Montreal and Quebec, among others.

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His documentary films have achieved international renown, winning awards at prestigious festivals in Toronto (Hot Docs), Saguenay (Regard), Quebec City (FCVQ), Montreal (RVCQ), London (Raindance), Vancouver (VLAFF), Chicago (CFF), Louisiana (Cinema on the Bayou), and Cannes (Short Film Corner).

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Martin Bureau was born in St-Ubalde and lives and works in Quebec City.