Danielle Lanteigne

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L'Art au Féminin

Painter Danielle Lanteigne reports that she always loved the direct creative process. Intuitive, even visionary, as a child of ten Danielle claimed she instinctively knew how to use the oil paints her sister had received as a gift. Danielle realized then how vast the universe she wanted to paint really was. After studying art at Concordia University and researching constantly for over a decade, Danielle saw her efforts win the Grand Prix du Conseil de la Culture des Laurentides in 1992. She honed a rigorous style under the watchful eye of Françoise Sullivan whose influence may still be seen in Danielle's drawing.

The richness of Danielle's current work is based on her knowledge and mastery of pictorial technique. The strength she has acquired in terms of division of space, rendering masses of colour and seeking out textures contributes to the overall visual effect. Danielle strives to maintain high standards and invites us casually to look at daily life with a slight smile. The constant battle between the balance of form and colour remains the viewer's initial impression upon seeing Danielle Lanteigne's recent still lifes. Danielle plays with the perspective of everyday objects. She deliberately scrambles our perception by brushing out a rectangular lemon, a squared apple on a stalk similar to a pennant or bloated grapes bursting into right angles. Unlike several painters of the "new figuration school", Danielle deforms to reform better, to make lines vibrate and to break with convention. She may call herself a "colourist" but her preoccupation remains an obsession with the disappearing vanishing point, an academic notion to which she seems allergic. For Danielle, all elements and objects are animated by the same life force and confronted in an apparently irrational order; thus they are both inert and animated.

For Danielle Lanteigne, painting and drawing are necessities, special moments she allows herself in order to keep her balance.

Marie-France Lamoureux

"L'Art au Féminin"

Magazin'Art Magazine (Summer 1996)