Jennifer Lefort

CURATOR'S NOTE

Jennifer Lefort’s abstract paintings are bold, exciting and the type of artwork that will make a statement in any collection and room design. Filled with color and expression, Jennifer’s paintings depict the true open-ended potential of abstraction towards meaning, narrative and imagination – this is what keeps her constantly searching for new outcomes. She exhibits an ability to combine gesture, form and color in a flowing and original choreography. Her talent in color use elicits different reactions when viewing her unconventional pairings. She is an extremely skilled mark maker and comes as no surprise, given the extent that her work is being collected and followed.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Jennifer Lefort (b. 1976, Montreal, Canada) is Canadian abstract artist based in Gatineau, Quebec. Her works explore contrast, space and the use of color through abstract painting and sculpture. She uses these elements to explore the coexistence and codependence of formalism and expressionism, color field and pattern, space within space, structure and disorder, and accidents and intuition in abstraction. Jennifer’s abstract paintings practice garnered her the prestigious Joseph Plaskett Foundation Award in 2005. In recent years she has shown her work in several solo and group shows in Canada and internationally. Of significant note are solo presentations at the New York and Basel VOLTA fairs, a temporary public artwork commission for the Musée d’art contemporain des Laurentides, as well as solo exhibitions with Patrick Mikhail Gallery and the Galerie UQO in Gatineau. Following a recent artist residency in Los Angeles, Lefort also has an upcoming exhibition scheduled in that city end of 2017. Her work is part of both private and corporate collections internationally – some notable acquisitions include the Musée Nationale du Québec, Aldo Group, Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Abbott, Hydro-Quebec, among many others.

“Over time, a visual vocabulary has developed in the work: these shapes, symbols and signs collectively help to construct each piece.Used throughout a body of work, these visual cues serve to create familiarity in a terrain that is otherwise unnameable. Combined, the dialogue between of all theses visual elements weaves a kind of abstract narrative in the image or sculpture. The open-ended potential of abstraction towards meaning, narrative and the imaginary is what keeps me searching for new outcomes.”

EDUCATION

MFA, York University, Toronto, Canada, 2006

BFA with distinction, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, 2002

MAJOR GROUP & SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2017 – Untitled (solo exhibition), P.E.S Limited, curators Corrine Bernard & Chelsea McCarthy, Los Angeles, CA

2016 – The Anecdotal & The Abstract (solo exhibition), Patrick Mikhail Gallery, Montreal, Canada

2015 – How’s it Going? (group exhibition), P.E.S. Limited, Avenue of the Americas Project Space, New York, NY

2015 – Solo Presentation PMG@ VOLTA BASEL, Basel, Switzerland