From riding chickens and facing off with lions, to playing with oversized toys, Carmel Debreuil strives to captures these timeless moments of children being children, through art.
Canadian/ Australian artist and mother of two, Carmel Debreuil uses acrylic paint and Posca textas on ply to create brightly coloured paintings of children and humans at play. Play is a serious matter for her subjects. Different rules apply than in every day life and everyday objects and creatures undergo transformations to be enjoyed in the imagination.
"I kinda like the idea that the kids are playing and doing their own thing and we've somehow stumbled into their world and interrupted their imagination... I also like that they are serious and unsmiling, because playing, you know, is serious business."
Carmel began studying art under her father, Canadian artist Marcel Debreuil, and honed her technical skills working as a portrait artist in Paris for two years. Since then, she has continued to grow in terms of style, creativity and output. As a result her profile has also been steadily increasing, with features in the US-based art publication Ink & Arrows, inclusion in the Queensland Living magazine, the McGrath magazine, and over 32 group and solo shows in the last two and a half years, including her most recent at the Brisbane Modern Art Gallery. She has also released three books of her work that feature over three hundred images of her art.
Her work is unique, distinct, and instantly recognisable. Her subjects each have their own uniform of favourite clothing, including cowboy boots and viking helmets, perfectly capturing the innocence of childhood with its beauty, confusion, vulnerability and uncertainty, but also the bravado and swagger and confidence too. 
Plywood also provides a good alternative to a traditional blank white canvas, as it provides a hard surface with the natural beauty of the texture of wood grain. The knots of the plywood Carmel paints on often becomes part of the work and are featured in the kids' clothing and in the features of the various animals in many of the paintings.
“I know the story behind each piece, but everyone will interpret them differently, often as a reaction to their own childhood. My work is definitely nostalgic and I hope it makes people smile, laugh and feel really good.”
Carmel Debreuil will launch her latest solo show, 'Look At Me! Look At Me!' in April at the M2 Gallery in Surry Hills. 
