In David Lafrance’s studio | Lover of painting

Coming from a family of artists, David Lafrance has been painting with passion for over 25 years. During the pandemic, the Montreal artist undertook a pictorial research linked to his desire to better understand nature without trying to dominate it. We met him in his rustic studio, near Mont Saint-Hilaire, in Montérégie.

Art in everyday life

A resident of Pointe-Saint-Charles, David Lafrance comes to paint every day in his Montérégie studio. And this has been the case for three years, after being evicted, like other artists, from 305 rue de Bellechasse, the former Montreal Catelli factory that served as their creative space. David Lafrance has always had a studio. In his grandmother’s basement when he was little or at a neighbour’s who had a spare room. “What I do here near Mont Saint-Hilaire, I’ve always done,” he says. “I’ve always had that instinct.”

Born in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, he grew up in Saint-Mathias. His father, André Lafrance, was a visual arts teacher. And his three brothers, like him, are into art. “Materials, models, crafts were part of our daily lives,” says David Lafrance. My grandmother, Georgette De Serres, created the Cercle des artisans du Haut-Richelieu. She had a loom club. When we were little, we went to craft shows. My father made wooden objects and my mother made children’s clothing. In their kiosk, my brothers and I sold the small objects we created. Art was present as something normal throughout our youth.” The family even founded a factory making toys from recycled wood sold at fairs and Christmas markets. “An antidepressant occupation!” he says.

David Lafrance naturally studied art at the Cégep du Vieux Montréal, then at Concordia, where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. “At 18, discovering the Dada movement, German Expressionism, that left its mark,” he says. “We all wanted to be Tristan Tzara!” He trained in engraving at the Atelier Circulaire, did residencies at the Sagamie centre in Alma, and honed his drawing skills in Italy. From 2003 to 2016, he even composed music, notably with fellow artist JF Lauda.

But it is painting and its substance that have always fascinated him. With his original visual language—a free but constructed gesture, illustrating a concern for documentation—David Lafrance embraces popular culture while using a sensitive view of life. Influenced by Basquiat, Gustave Moreau, Pierre Bonnard, Arthur Villeneuve, Serge Lemoyne, Tom Thomson, Peter Doig and Philip Guston, his paintings are collected by great art lovers and museums. He taught at the Université du Québec à Montréal and has just obtained a position at the Cégep du Vieux Montréal.

Passion for nature

David Lafrance has long inserted characters into his paintings. In 2017, at the invitation of curator Anseman Sabet, he created A workshop in the forestan installation comprising a huge canvas accompanied by a wooden desk, then exhibited at the Musée d’art contemporain des Laurentides. This canvas of an invented forest – acquired by the Musée d’art contemporain – led him to take an interest in landscape and nature.

He loves this Montérégie nature that influenced the Borduas, Ozias Leduc and Jordi Bonet before him. During the pandemic, he undertook a project in a field near his studio. He created a work of landscape art with plants and vegetables. A Topographical garden which represents the region whose reliefs he studied from a satellite photo. He dug two furrows for the Richelieu River and the Hurons River which wind their way to the Chambly basin. One elevation corresponds to Mont Saint-Hilaire.

The 47-year-old artist planted kale to represent the forest, echinops to give a blue tint to the mountain, and vegetables and aromatic plants to add other colors: tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, carrots, beans, thyme, absinthe, etc. A piece of plywood represents the local golf course and small cement blocks, the town of Belœil!

Maintaining the work is complicated. Nature is difficult to tame and that is not the artist’s goal. In addition, animals have adopted the place. Deer follow the path of the rivers. Marmots, snakes, mice, wild bees and monarchs coexist. Recently, a heron decimated the frog colony of the “Chambly basin”! David Lafrance and his family enjoy the fruits of the garden and the artist is inspired by this work of land art to paint canvases which are lyrical variations of the garden.

Where to see his works

His gallery owner Hugues Charbonneau will be exhibiting several of his paintings starting September 12 as part of an exhibition that will feature artists Manuel Mathieu, Maria Hupfield, Rajni Perera and Cindy Phenix. Hugues Charbonneau has a lot of respect for his protégé. “I first exhibited his work in 1999, when I was the young, inexperienced director of the Concordia student gallery,” he says. “I fell in love with his fiery, inventive painting. His paintings are an absolute celebration of painting.”

David Lafrance will then exhibit solo at the Alfred-Pellan room of the Maison des arts de Laval from 1^er December to February 2, at the invitation of its director, Jasmine Colizza. Designed by curator Bénédicte Ramade, the exhibition entitled Eight seasons will discuss the evolution of the Topographical garden.

His fame having been acquired in Quebec, David Lafrance’s big challenge is to make himself known elsewhere in Canada and the United States. “It could get going this fall,” he says. “But there are artists in every city. For 25 years, I have continued my work, with a kind of quiet strength. And I have a dream of finishing. Going into detail, entering into finesse. But maybe that will be too manic. One day, I might make a square of earth all brown! My fantasy is in any case first and foremost linked to time, to the availability to be in my studio and do nothing but that. Painting…”

Visit David Lafrance’s website

In pictures

Here are some of David Lafrance’s works over the years