Danaé Brissonnet grew up in Quebec but her art has wandered far beyond borders, gathering colors, creatures, and stories along the way. She paints like a storyteller who prefers walls over books, filling streets with characters that look as though they’ve slipped out of folklore and found a new life in the city. Murals, masks, puppets—her practice spills into whichever form feels right, always blurring the line between spectacle and connection.

What makes her approach so magnetic is the way it folds communities into the process. Brissonnet often works in places where public art feels out of reach, inviting children and residents to leave their mark alongside hers. The result isn’t just a finished mural, but the memory of collaboration, a collective moment made visible in paint. Every brushstroke carries both her imagination and the voices of the people around her.

One of her most striking works towers over the corner of Boulevard Saint Laurent and Rue Marie Anne in Montréal. In collaboration with the Puerto Rican collective Poncili Creación, she gave shape to a monstrous puppet-like figure with monarch wings, fluttering lashes, and a wide theatrical mouth. It’s playful and a little unsettling, a mural that seems to grin and guard the street at the same time. Brissonnet described it as a metaphor for digestion—what we allow into our lives, and what we keep out. That mix of humor and symbolism turns an ordinary wall into something layered, alive, and a little mischievous.

Her imagination has stretched into immersive projects like Temple of a Thousand Stories with Meow Wolf, where she built an entire environment of creatures and mythic symbols. Visitors weren’t just looking at art; they were wandering inside it, surrounded by fragments of folklore and dream imagery stitched into an atmosphere that felt at once chaotic and carefully woven.

In Montréal again, the mural La Pangée—created with MU in 2018—brought together myth and local storytelling. A stork-goose hybrid lays a coral-nestled egg painted by neighborhood children, while honeycomb patterns ripple through its wing. It’s a vision of shared belonging, a reminder of how migration and creativity overlap, of how communities can build new nests together.

Her work in New Orleans carried another layer of resonance: a vibrant mural dedicated to the cultural communities, especially Black communities, that have shaped the city’s legendary identity. Brissonnet spoke of it as an homage to resilience, a way of honoring the people whose traditions and creativity continue to define the city. Like so many of her pieces, it’s both celebratory and grounded, a conversation between past and future painted in color.

Through all of these projects, Brissonnet keeps showing us that public art doesn’t need to stand at a distance. It can invite us in, ask us to take part, and remind us of the ties that hold us together.

If you’re curious to keep exploring her universe of puppets, masks, and myth-soaked murals, wander over to www.danaebrisso.com. It’s a little like peeking inside her sketchbook—except the pages don’t stay still.