\u00c9lise Lafontaine\u2019s paintings foster a fertile dialogue between the organic dimension of the body and the strangeness of the compartmentalized living spaces that she visited within the context of artist residencies: a psychiatric hospital in Mal\u00e9voz, Switzerland; caves of prehistoric art in the Ari\u00e9ge Pyrenees, France; and the Carmelite monastery in Montr\u00e9al. Within this exploratory context, Lafontaine\u2019s pictorial work gives form to the experience of the body, made up of several organ systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, Lafontaine affirms the organic reality of things and establishes in her creative process a relationship of distension and contraction between the body\u2019s affects and its environment. She transposes her own emotional experiences as much to the rough walls of a Paleolithic cave as to the cold verticality of the pillars in a religious building. Taking full liberty in her investigation of these places, the painter expresses herself boldly through enchanting modulations of colour. Gradients of silky tones glide over the surface, capturing the gaze. Her recurrent use of symmetry in her paintings acts as a reminder of the unyielding axial balance of the human body. The presence of this central axis orients the perspective, which spirals downward, visually hollowing out the surface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2022, Lafontaine has dared to metamorphose these pictorial planes by introducing undulating volumes, almost in high relief. The work Les fl\u00fbtes III<\/em> (2024), for example, is a volumetric, sonorous image that dovetails perfectly with these vertical, repetitive structures. The conflicting relationship between the actualization of a fixed image of the body and the one experienced, which is shifting, non-definitive, and in constant transformation, has led her into paradoxes that are in every way \u201csensory.\u201d Her works strongly recall those of her fellow painters Hilma af Klint and Georgia O\u2019Keeffe. Here, we encounter the desire for an abstraction that turns out to be nothing more than a question of the indistinction between figurative forms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A painter and director of art documents and experimental videos, Mario C\u00f4t\u00e9 has initiated several multidisciplinary projects and is the author of numerous texts about art. He is interested in encounters not only between artistic disciplines but also between art practitioners. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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$\"\u00c9lise$
\u00c9lise Lafontaine<\/strong>
Where fire divides<\/em>,
43 \u00d7 35 \u00d7 2,5 cm, 2025.
Photo: Atlas documentation, courtesy of the artist & Pang\u00e9e, Montr\u00e9al<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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$\"\u00c9lise$
\u00c9lise Lafontaine<\/strong>
Sovereignty<\/em>,
152,4 \u00d7 121,9 \u00d7 5,1 cm, 2024.
Photo: document original, courtesy of the artist & Jack Barrett Gallery, New York<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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$\"\u00c9lise$
\u00c9lise Lafontaine<\/strong>
La Cath\u00e9drale<\/em>,
177,8 \u00d7 127 \u00d7 4,4 cm, 2024.
Photo: Atlas documentation, courtesy of the artist & Pang\u00e9e, Montr\u00e9al<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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$\"\u00c9lise$
\u00c9lise Lafontaine<\/strong>
Le grand d\u00f4me<\/em>,
172,7 \u00d7 127 \u00d7 4,4 cm, 2024.
Photo: Atlas documentation, courtesy of the artist & Pang\u00e9e, Montr\u00e9al<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":268513,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"categories":[885],"numeros":[7491],"disciplines":[],"statuts":[],"checklist":[],"auteurs":[6925],"artistes":[2667],"thematiques":[],"type_portfolio":[],"class_list":["post-268515","portfolio","type-portfolio","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-portfolio","numeros-114-abstractions-en","auteurs-mario-cote-en","artistes-elise-lafontaine-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/268515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/portfolio"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268515"},{"taxonomy":"numeros","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/numeros?post=268515"},{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=268515"},{"taxonomy":"statuts","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/statuts?post=268515"},{"taxonomy":"checklist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/checklist?post=268515"},{"taxonomy":"auteurs","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/auteurs?post=268515"},{"taxonomy":"artistes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artistes?post=268515"},{"taxonomy":"thematiques","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematiques?post=268515"},{"taxonomy":"type_portfolio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_portfolio?post=268515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}