Lyse Lemieux: So dawn goes down to day

September 17 – November 13, 2022

This solo exhibition focused on recent paintings by Vancouver-based contemporary artist Lyse Lemieux. The artist’s interdisciplinary practice also encompasses drawing, sculpture and installation, through which she explores the space between abstraction and representation. Her hallmark use of stylized ovals, appendages, fabric and felt illustrate the artist’s deep engagement with the human (and not–so–human) figure that carries throughout her art–making, which spans more than forty years. So dawn goes down to day brought attention to the artist’s recent incorporation of luscious colour into her paintings.

The exhibition featured works from several series made within the last five years that are connected by an undercurrent of emotional tension. The accompanying earlier sculpture, Collared Column (2016), points to the ongoing influence of textiles in Lemieux’s practice, emerging in recent paintings through intense patterning and colour that mimics fabric. This vibrant exhibition of paintings on paper and canvas reveals the porous membrane between internal and external landscapes, which the artist explores through the psychological resonance of colour, the fragmented and hybrid human form, motifs from nature and the grid. 

About Lyse Lemieux

Lyse Lemieux’s interdisciplinary practice has focused on drawing and includes sculpture, painting and installation. In recent years, she has expanded to outdoor large-scale public art, with projects that consider the physical, emotional and communal environments these spaces can offer. Through meditations on process and materiality, her work explores the space between abstraction and representation while consistently maintaining an interest in the human figure. Originally from Ottawa, Lemieux attended the University of Ottawa and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. She has exhibited nationally and internationally including at the Canadian Cultural Centre, Rome; Vancouver Art Gallery; Oakville Galleries, Ontario; Richmond Art Gallery, BC; Charles H. Scott Gallery, Vancouver; Trépanier-Baer Gallery, Calgary; Katzman Contemporary, Toronto; WAAP – Wil Aballe Art Projects, Vancouver; SFU Gallery, Burnaby; and Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver. Lemieux has been awarded grants from the BC Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts and was the 2017 recipient of the VIVA Award, granted annually by the Doris and Jack Shadbolt Foundation for the Visual Arts. Adjudicated by an independent jury, the VIVA is awarded to mid-career artists for outstanding achievement and commitment to the visual arts. Two of Lemieux’s large-scale public art projects were installed in Vancouver in October 2020 and September 2021. She is currently working on a new public art project, scheduled to be completed and installed in Burnaby in 2024.