Artist of the Month at NACC
COLLECTION STORY
From 2010 to 2016 I have the opportunity to give painting workshops in various NWT communities with grants from NWT Arts Council. I went with economic materials hoping I could find plywood on each site. Spending a full week in each community, I gave free workshops to the youth just after school finished, mostly in July because in August the youth go to the hunting and fishing camps with their parents. We painted fish and birds and many other locals animals. I was cutting and priming many shapes in the morning to be ready to paint in the afternoon. At the end of each week, there was a public exhibit then the kids were going with their big fish by bicycle. Sometimes, the fish was bigger than them. All the paintings were varnished well so they can go outside or inside. It was their choice. And I took photos.
Since I cannot publish my own photos without the parents signature and respect this rule in photography I tried to paint my photos. The action of painting was my point of interest more than to recognize the faces. I gave myself a challenge to paint faces and hands. I prefer the hands. In the process, I questioned myself about if the faces have to be recognized or not. I don’t have the answer yet. I stil have to practice.
Here is the result of 27 paintings done during 2 winters when I was caretaker for my old mother who was living in Valleyfield, Québec. The collection was carried by plane in a small bag and everything was framed at my outdoor studio with frames found through the years. It is a small budget project without a grant for framing and many hours. It is the first time that I frame a painting.
I hope you will see the importance of giving the opportunity to the youth to participate in an artistic project that they can be proud of. The workshops were in the afternoons, once the paintbrushes cleaned and dinner eaten, I went to walk from 19h to midnight, with my mosquito net since it was a paradise for the mosquitoes. The vegetation was at it best blooming. As a biologist I was impressed to observe all the configurations that many northern plants had developed to stay warm. An insolation system to compensate to the short summer season as well as the adaptation of constant light, day and night. The tundra with carpet of blooming flowers as well as the mosses that spring under the foot. Infinite perspectives and small ice floating on the sea in middle of July. It is tatooed in my memory. The taïga with small coniferous, labrador tea and cloudberries all over. And the boreal forest with the big river, lakes and delicious fish. I wish this collection will allow me to travel to new territories.
Diane Boudreau on her 27 painting collection
ARTIST Biography
Diane Boudreau, artist-biologist, living in Yellowknife since 2000. She started to paint insects on t-shirts at the beginning, there are a lot here and they are part of the micro-landscape. Diane took her microscope and observed the various species that are up north. Drawing and painting insects gives her the opportunity to travel, participate in festivals and learn about communities.
She also paint plants, mostly the ones she has observed under the microscope. She did a series of watercolours for Nahanni Park interpretation centre. She is interested in promoting landscape art in the north so started creating animal sculptures with rocks. She has made numerous ephemeral installations of insects on abandoned sites or hidden in the landscape and uses local materials from the various sites.
In 2002, Diane requested a grant from the NWT Council for the Arts to be able to make landscape art. She created 5 big sculptures made of piled rocks and core samples. The dimensions are approximately 4 meters by 2 meters. There is a fish, made of flat rocks from the shore of Great Slave Lake, a beaver made of core samples and sand, a coleopteran, a caddisfly larvae and a dragonfly made of angular and blasted rocks from construction sites in the surrounding. They are located within the Yellowknife city limits.
In 2003, she received another grant from the NWT Council for the Arts to create a cork raft (4 meters by 4 meters) with a caddisfly larvae on top of it. She had been collecting the corks since 1993 and gathered 17,600 corks to built the raft.
Diane enjoys what she is doing in the North and there are many ways to explore the land in terms of landscape art. She tries to combine together what she learned in environmental design, biology and entomology.
Diane’s work will be display and for sale at NACC for the month of September 2024.
In Partnership with NWT Arts ~ Click their logo below to view Diane’s profile
