Artist of Mid-century Futurism

Canadian artist Angela Bisson has a knack for mixing equal parts joy and magic as she guides her paintings to express a gentle side of modernism.

"Modernism permits us to travel in time to the mid‐century era and in the future at the same time," she says.

Bisson's art also seems to do just that. These days, while playing in the stars with her pastel palette, she loves conjuring up the distant past with imagery of 1950s and '60s futurism.

Bisson brings out a fantasy vision, with brushstrokes that swirl and shine around such icons as the LAX Theme Building and the Space Needle from the 1962 Seattle World's Fair, both of which are among the mid‐century‐inspired works displayed in the MCM Urban Collection'on the artist's website.

Soft‐spoken and studious, Bisson makes her home on the south shore of Montreal, Quebec, where she lives with her husband in their time capsule neighborhood.

"A week after I moved here, a little girl came to my door selling cookies. Her mom was not far away," she recalled recently. "Then I saw a young man with longish hair on a skateboard being pulled by his dog on a leash. I thought how cool is that. I felt like I was in a time warp."

Like so many other practicing artists of the world, Bisson wears several hats these days. "Besides being an artist and a mother and wife…I work as an assistant for a superior court judge, criminal chamber," she says. "I love my job, which is very meticulous; however, I also have a deep need to express my creativity and think outside of the box."

That's where her art comes in, of course. While pointing out what Picasso said about "art is to wash away the dust of everyday life," Bisson sees her creative output as a bit of an escape hatch.

"In my case, it's to wash off the 'court drama,'" she says, and all the procedures, testimonies, and tragedies she encounters throughout her days in the courtroom.

"I try to feed my brain and my heart with the creative and positive—to nurture my soul," she adds. "That is one of the reasons I love mid‐century and art deco. These eras were times of innovation, economic boom, and optimism for the future."

Reflecting on her childhood growing up in a family of five in the suburbs of Montreal, the artist recalls years filled with "doing puzzles and coloring while listening to Elvis records. My love for mid‐century modern started with the love of '50s and '60s music.

"As a teenager, the movie 'Grease' was all the rage…and I was fascinated with everything from that era [represented in the film]—fashion, cars with wings, antiques, and architecture."