Paintings by two of Canada's most influential contemporary fine artists
Animals with Sharpies is a collection of paintings with hand-lettered texts. In each painting, Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber have depicted an animal holding a Sharpie, ostensibly writing a message. These messages are varied in nature: political and religious tracts, confessions, recipes, arithmetic problems, and more. Above all, these paintings are funny, but they are also startlingly poignant and jarring for the humanness of the suffering and longing depicted in these animals' simple words.
Dumontier and Farber, two of the founding members of the highly influential art collective the Royal Art Lodge, have been collaborating on art projects for more than fifteen years. Their collaborative style is unique from that found in their individual works and is respected internationally: they've exhibited together in France, Switzerland, Canada, the United States, Belgium, Spain, England, and Germany.
Dumontier and Farber have a strong sense of the absurd, but they are also deeply insightful about the world in which their art is created. Animals with Sharpies is a mixture of new, previously unseen pieces and older pieces.

Michael Dumontier's profile page

Neil Farber's profile page

Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber are founding members of the Royal Art Lodge. Since the dissolution of the influential Winnipeg art collective, Dumontier and Farber continue to work and create art together. Their work is in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Canada, Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada Council Art Bank, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Centro De Arte Caja De Burgos (Spain), Takashi Murakami (Tokyo), Folkwang Museum (Essen), and La Maison Rouge (Paris). They both reside in Winnipeg, Canada.

[ Animals with Sharpies ] is a delightful and instructive menagerie that combines a negotiated anthropomorphism with an engaging sense of being inside the animal. These creatures use their mouth-held sharpies to deliver observations and reactions that run the gamut from the absurd to the poignant." - Border Crossings

"Aa mix of both new and old paintings that explore the absurd, hilarious, twee, and poignant sharpie messages of the animal kingdom." - Art Info Canada
"