Lyse Lemieux is a Canadian contemporary visual artist based in Vancouver. She has exhibited nationally and internationally since 1976. Her art practice focuses primarily on drawing, painting and installation work.
Biography
Lyse Lemieux was born in 1956 in Ottawa, Canada. She studied at the University of Ottawa and the University of British Columbia and received a BFA from the University of British Columbia. Lemieux was appointed and served for eight years as a part-time member of the Canadian Artist and Producers Professional Relations Tribunal a quasi-judicial tribunal in Ottawa, responsible for the interpretation and administration of the Status of the Artist Act. She also worked on contract as a radio producer and television journalist in Vancouver for La Société Radio-Canada in Vancouver. She currently lives and works in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Lyse was the winner of the 2017 VIVA Award.
Artistic practice
Lemieux's practice focuses on expanded drawing and drawing installation. Her materials vary, but have included textiles, ink on paper, and wool felt. Her content is mostly abstract, but she often employs ovoids. Robin Laurence has said that Lemieux uses these "lopsided ovals to suggest either human heads or bodies, part of an experimental drawing practice that dodges between abstraction and figuration. She has also claimed unexpected materials such as fabric, found clothing, even medical tape as drawing materials, confounding our understanding of medium and process." Her work is known for a sensitive, lyrical line which Marina Roy details, "the viewer attempts to pinpoint what it is about a particular combination of line quality, ink wash and fabric collage that evokes such humour, absurdity and pathos." Her abstractions fragment the subject by separating heads and torsos, Robin Laurence sees this as a moment "created out of disjointed parts are reminiscent of the surrealist practice of 'Exquisite Corpse'." Her work has been curated alongside Vikky Alexander, Nadia Myre, Beth Stuart, Meryl McMaster, Shary Boyle, Carol Wainio and Luanne Martineau in Aujourd'hui Encore at Trépanier Baer in Calgary, and more recently curated by Daina Augaitis and Jesse McKee for the Vancouver Art Gallery show Vancouver Special: Ambivalent Pleasures which contextualized emerging artists like Jeneen Frei Njootli, and Krista Belle Stewart with established artists like Mina Totino, Gary Neil Kennedy, and Elizabeth McIntosh.
Select Exhibitions
2018: Full Frontal, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver 2018: 13 Ways to Summon Ghosts,Gordon Smith Gallery, North Vancouver 2016-17: Vancouver Special: Ambivalent Pleasures, Vancouver Art Gallery 2016-17: Kitchen Midden, Griffin Art Projects, Vancouver 2016: A Girl's Gotta Do What a Girl's Gotta Do, 2015: Out of Line, Oakville Galleries, Oakville, Ontario 2015: Black is the Size of My New Dress, , Vancouver 2015: In-Between-In-Between, Katzman Contemporary, Toronto 2014: Shaped Drawings, Something Wrong About the Mouth, , Vancouver 2014: Beside Yourself, AHVA Gallery, Audain Art Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
