Peau(x) de pièces

Artist: Élise Lafontaine
Exhibition: January 22 to March 5, 2022

Hoping to find some clarity, I sit by a window overlooking the Swiss Alps. I observe as the patients wander around and the caregivers hurry from one ward to another. I’m overwhelmed by this oppressing sensation of being held under a dome. I imagine myself trapped inside of a vast hourglass that is lying horizontally. I ask the patients of this psychiatric hospital what would be, around here, their safe space. They guide me to the Abbey of Saint-Maurice.

Projet Pangée is delighted to present Peau(x) de pièces, an exquisite exhibition of Élise Lafontaine. Weaving links between the body, spirituality, and architecture, Élise Lafontaine’s pictural approach is rooted in extensive immersive research where the artist stays in isolated communities. With respect and discretion, she investigates places of worship or meditation, areas inaccessible to most people, and where time is suspended. During her various residencies, she has infiltrated the prehistoric caves of the Aegean Pyrenees (France), prison and psychiatric environments (Switzerland), and the Carmelite monastery in Montreal (Canada).

[…]

  • The artist first documents her experience and research through photography. From these traces, she moves on to painting, where each series is created according to the particularities of the host site: light, volume, iconography, body sensation, and lived experience inform the paintings. The history of the place and its occupants also plays a determining role in Lafontaine’s approach to painting.

    The artist’s technique juxtaposes thin layers of translucent paint. She then sands the surface to blur the contours. This allows her to accentuate the canvas’ materiality by revealing the light in the background. Peau(x) de pièces also explores the stitching of painted fabrics. These layouts create volumes, such as columns and vaults, as well as windows intruding the canvas. These simple gestures reveal extreme tensions that play on the invisible, opening up new questions of reality, new singular spaces of thought. On the surface of the canvas, all the architectural elements meet and vibrate together. Transformed into sensitive and contemplative abstractions, they echo the places they evoke.

    Biography

    Élise Lafontaine (b. 1984, Montreal, Canada) holds a Master’s degree in Visual and Media Arts from the University of Quebec at Montreal (2020) and a Bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts from Concordia University (2015). She has participated in Malévoz Quartier culturel artist residency (Switzerland), Vermont Studio Center (United States), and Leipzig International Art program (Germany). In the coming year, Lafontaine has a residency at the Christoph Merian Foundation (CALQ) in Swiss, and solo exhibitions at Sothu Salon in Zurich, Open White gallery in Berlin, and Marmo Gallery in the United States. Her work has been presented in Montreal in a solo show (Nicolas Robert gallery) and in group shows (Clark Center, Rad Hourani Foundation, McBride Contemporain, Maison de la culture Plateau-Mont-Royal, Usine C, Art Mûr gallery) and in Leipzig (Spinnerei autumn tour). She is also the recipient of numerous grants, the most recent being the Canada Council for the Arts Research and Creation grant. Her work has been published in Autumn Issue 19, ARTMAZEMAG (curator: Galerie Projet Pangée, CA). In 2022, the Marmo Gallery (WA, USA) will publish a book about her in situ work.