Michelle La Perrière

Using graphite, paint, collage, and sometimes installation, I examine the interwoven existence of past, present and future, dream and despair, grief and healing. The content of my work frequently includes the insidious abuse of power as it relates to children, women, and the environment. At the same time, I acknowledge beauty and love through layering perhaps a hint of sky with an illuminated bowl of lemons, or a flicker of new leaves with hands beckoning.

Fragments of images referenced from contemporary catalogues and magazines are frequently incorporated with those from old children’s books, art historical references, landscapes and objects from observation. I investigate the ostensibly paradoxical “holding” of something awkward or painful, while simultaneously perceiving beauty and pleasure possible in the present moment.

We, each, occupy multiple places at the same time – physical, psychological, emotional. I acknowledge such spaces in my work – different realities, a fusion of the ordinary and unexpected. Bringing to light the muck, finding healing in the digging and revealing, and allowing for the “as is” to be just fine, are inevitable as I immerse myself in my process.