Indigenous Artist Bio
Michèle LaRose is a painter based in Kingston, Ontario. She studied fine art in Québec City, Montréal and Brockville. She has a B.A. in Art History from Queen’s University in Kingston and a Certificate in Fine Arts from St. Lawrence College. Michèle worked for many years with the federal government in the cultural field, before moving to the private sector. In 2002 she turned to painting.
Michèle has focused primarily on painting, with forays into printmaking and book illustration. Her focus is abstraction and colour, the nature of which she plumbs for new insights. She is intrigued by the interaction of colour and form and the spontaneous and intuitive leaps that occur. She is driven by curiosity and challenges, investigating what different processes yield or how the application of constraints opens up new avenues of exploration. Like many before her, she likens her work to instrumental music, with its orchestrations of multiple and competing instruments, sometimes complex other times minimal. Of equal interest is the function of the brain, which seeks to decipher any image into recognizable shapes, and how this reveals itself no matter how non-representational the paintings are.
Michèle has exhibited extensively since 1994. She illustrated 2 books of poetry: ‘X’ by Phil Hall, Governor-General Award-winning poet, published in 2013; and ‘From the Mouths’, by Shane Neilson, 2014; both published by Thee Hellbox Press of Kingston. In 2018 she published a book of her paintings with poetry by herself and Bruce Kauffman entitled ‘The Elm Suite’.
Artist Statement
Flight paths:
We all reached a point as art students when we came to the edge of the cliff which marks the start of our personal journey as artists. We came to that edge, we jumped, and to our great surprise we could fly. Some of us soared higher than others, but no matter, the height and length of any flight make us feel more alive, more connected to others and to the planet. These works show various flight paths I have taken over the years, all of them rewarding in some way. There will be many more to follow, I hope!
Email: michelelaroseart@gmail.com
Website: www.michelelarose.ca
Instagram: @michelelaroseart
