Collection: Madeleine Lemire

Born in Oka in 1940, Madeleine Lemire trained in several courses and workshops ranging from the École des beaux-arts de Montréal (1950-1960) to the École du Louvre in Paris (1965-66), including the Saidye Bronfman Center (1986), and Engramme (1990). Each year, she divides her time between her studio in the Eastern Townships of Quebec and a country where she finds warmth and light, whether in Provence, the south of France, Guatemala, or Mexico. She has several solo and group exhibitions to her credit in private galleries in Quebec, Canada, and Europe. In 1996, Madeleine Lemire was elected a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.

Always fond of the theme of nature, Madeleine Lemire traces, from a horizon line, a set of dense and abstract diagonals that reveal a foreground, then a second. This has the effect of creating depth and suggesting a landscape that we can still vaguely recognize. The areas of light and deep contrasts share the space thus conceived. This alternation between what is light and dark evokes for the artist "life with its dark moments interspersed with periods of light."

The lively momentum of the brushstroke is supported by a nevertheless parsimonious and controlled gesture that can only be applauded: the spontaneous movement that emanates from Madeleine Lemire's works does not exist solely for the expression of the emotions of the one who creates. The jerky aspect of Lemire's oil drawings is attenuated by the judicious choice of the monochrome background mentioned above. This airiness gives the viewer the sensation of breathing by provoking a back and forth between softness and intensity. An aesthetic that serves the artist's purpose.