Artist Highlight

"Sometimes the freshest vision can be born from a cross-pollination of the creative disciplines.  After 30 years, designing men’s fashion, Andre Croteau has turned his seasoned instincts towards the fine arts.  Croteau creates “luxury friezes”… resin-based canvases that evoke a glossy, shiny sense of life, energy and well-being for those that experience them.
The study of “color and light” has long held a fascination.  Light, and the way it interacts with these colorful, abstract features is an integral part of every artistic dialogue.  Initially looking for a contemporary sensibility, within which to capture his love for the brilliance of stained glass, Croteau has coined an opulent and organic style that’s infused with an amalgam of color, shine, movement and depth.
Beneath the surface, Croteau’s work captures a more-personal, expressionist conversation.  The genesis of every “visual exploration” is a conceptual destination that points the process in an aesthetic direction.  That said, Croteau does not seek to firmly control the outcome, but rather allows each piece to pragmatically evolve until it reaches its’ own peaceful conclusion… when it’s finally “at rest”… yet a more-random transformation continues-on, right until the point that the composition becomes frozen in time, forever.  The artist has used this same approach, throughout his creative career, and sees it as a greater metaphor for the unscripted,  worry-free way in which he, ultimately, aspires to lead his life.  The ideas of imperfection, transformation and chance are central to his work.
Croteau received his formal training at New York’s renowned Fashion Institute of Technology and remained in New York for the majority of his fashion career, creating for such luxury houses as Saks Fifth Avenue, Piero Dimitri Couture, Paul Stuart and Alexander Julian, before relocating to Metropolitan Miami.  His frequent research travel, throughout Europe, Asia and South America has yielded a well-informed creative base of aesthetics upon which to draw".