There’s one aspect of artistic creation and the “artist’s life” that often goes unnoticed. Actually, the same holds true for all forms of expression – films, songs, plays, writing, or painting, which is no exception to the rule. Wondering where I’m heading here? What I’m trying to say is, there’s a trap…

A trap that often hides behind an artist’s success. A trap that compels the artist to express herself more or less the same way throughout her career, because the public has identified her with one particular style and refuses to follow her onto other tangents. And it’s not just the public – galleries do the same. More often than you might expect, the painter becomes the victim of a genre, a style for which she is known and to which she is confined from then on. To break free from the trap without losing her identity takes not just talent, but strong determination and courage to meet all comers… Because of course there’s no guarantee that it will work. Madeleine Lemire took the challenge and won her bet, hands down.

A few years ago, Lemire was essentially known for her floral scenes. Gradually, she imposed a very personal touch and treatment. Without renouncing the theme, she took more and more liberties with it – the type of liberty that’s vital to any form of expression. From painting to painting, the subject became not so much flowers but her flowers. She had reached a turning point in her quest, found her distance from things… She could well have stayed where she was, but her desire to explore other avenues was just too strong. From the macro-landscape ruled by flowers and nature, she decided to broaden her horizons. Now she encompassed vast views that, in her passion for painting, impulsively became spaces that were lyrical and highly dynamic due to the way she treated the space. And that is one of her most masterful interests: space!

What is wonderful in Lemire’s landscapes is the highly personal perspective. Slightly truncated and inward-looking, they are gently allusive, embracing the surface of the canvas in graceful acrobatics of lines and shapes that call out to the viewer as the horizon fades away.

Her lyricism appears on the canvas with the dynamic, sure and spirited touch that emerges in this barely recognizable nature. Lemire’s chromatic range is shimmering without being too distracting or overtly seductive. Colour is certainly important, but it yields to the weight and precision of the compositions. In Lemire’s landscapes we find that rarety – a fresh view of the art of the landscape, expressed without artifice or mannerism. Note that the artist has not abandoned the theme of flowers in nature – she still leaves it some space in her creative register. But although it no longer reigns supreme, it is still executed by an authoritative hand.

If you’re an art-lover or just plain curious – curious to discover new horizons that just may surprise you – don’t miss Madeleine Lemire’s upcoming exhibition at the Galerie Michel-Ange in Old Montreal. You won’t be disappointed!





Is it correct to call Madeleine Lemire a painter with a single subject? It is certainly true to say that for the past few years, she has essentially found self-expression through the representation of flowers in nature – close-ups of enormous flowers. While this is certainly a “single” subject, the range of treatments is extremely broad, and the artist is clearly not short on inspiration. Quite the opposite, in fact: Lemire is frequently rather daring in her approach, not hesitating to push suggestion to the limit. Some of her recent paintings are even, in their plastic treatment, so pared-down that they are barely recognizable. Her touch can only be called magnificent – here an aerial ballet, there a waltz in space. Lemire’s oeuvre clearly expresses her attachment to and in-depth knowledge of her subject. Her paintings occupy a territory that shifts between illustration, suggestion, and free plasticity, which liberates the painter from her subject. This combination of characteristics can be perceived as hesitation to push back the limits of representation, but this very duality is what makes her an artist of such richness. Her work stands alone in the community of painters who embrace the theme of flowers in nature.
(Robert Bernier)





“Madeleine Lemire is totally in love with flowers in nature. Beyond physical appearance, this remarkable painter is able to render the intrinsic spirit of life. In often spectacular ways, Lemire explores the ‘nature of nature’ with a rich, dense palette that shows the plant in close-up in terms of suggestion rather than description.”





“The artist has mastered the forms of an unbounded, approximate gesture, taking it from imagination to reality without freezing the image or locking it into an overly rigid structure. Many-faceted colours and lines push her representations to the limits of figurative form. These traits skim the canvas, imbuing it with an initial impulse of strength and vitality.”
(Jules Arbec)