Lyne Lapointe


Lyne Lapointe is a French-Canadian artist, born in 1957 in Montreal, Quebec. Her work ranges from site-specific installations, found-objects, drawings, and paintings, with focuses on art history, museology, botany, and feminism. She has exhibited extensively in Montreal, Quebec, and New York City, New York, and across Canada. She now lives and works in Mansonville, Quebec.

Early Work

Lapointe studied art history and visual arts at the Old Montreal and Rosemont colleges, and in 1978 attained a Bachelor of Fine Art at Carleton University of Ottawa. Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Lapointe lived and worked in Montreal with collaborative partner Martha Fleming. The two were together from 1981-1995.

Collaboration with Martha Fleming (1981-1995)

Lapointe and Fleming’s collaborations were rooted in the politics of radical feminism, marginalization, and museum practices. Their works combined the inquiry of site-specific histories, art historical references, female sexuality and desire, and botany, in order to critically analyze systemic social politics. The two ended their relationship in 1995.
Site-Specific Installation
From 1981-1995 Lapointe and Fleming executed several site-specific installations in politically charged architectural and abandoned buildings across Montreal, Quèbec, New York City, New York, and Sao Paulo, Brazil. Addressing systemic marginalization with museum and gallery practices in a feminist lens, these installations engage the complex social issues historically embedded at such sites..
Studiolo
In 1997, The Musee d’Art Contemporain exhibited a retrospective for Lapointe and Fleming titled, "Studiolo". The exhibit marked their 15-year collaboration, showcasing the years of the polemic research and creative processes that they shared. Complementary to the retrospective was a publication, also titled "Studiolo", which represented the political and philosophical frameworks from which they worked. The exhibit was subsequently exhibited at the Art Gallery of Windsor in 1998, invited by curator Helga Pakasaar.
Other Collaborative work includes:
La Perle, Carlton University
In 2007, the Carlton University Art Gallery held a solo exhibition for Lapointe titled, La Perle. The exhibit engaged Lapointe’s interest of sound, optics, and museum history, with 23 individual works of painting, drawings, and found-objects. The installation of works, drawn from images of botany, medical, art-historical sources and encyclopedias, were intended to challenge practices of museology and methods of display.
Selected Works: La Pierre Patiente
In 2011, the Pierre-Francois Oulette Art Contemporain exhibited 7 selected paintings from Lapointe’s series La Pierre Patiente. Lapointe used acupuncture needles, formally intended to reestablish a human internal balance of energy, to address the tension between humans’ link to the environment and other species. These works were painted on glass with phosphorescent pigments, to suggest the shift between light and darkness, and the fragility of memory and disembodiment.
Further Exhibitions Include:
Awards and Collections:
Lapointe has been an awarded recipient from, among others, the Conseil des Art et des Lettres du Quebec, the Pollock Krasner Foundation, New York, the Prix Graff, and the Canada Council for the Arts. Her work is collected in major Canadian art institutes. She is represented by Roger Bellemare/Christian Lambert Gallery in Montreal, and has artworks at the Jack Shainman Gallery in New York City, New York.