St. Lawrence Centre, Tonronto, January 1984

Denise Laperrière, whose work will de on display in the Town Hall Theatre Lobby until the 28th of January, was born and raised in Quebec. She attended the Université de Montréal where she received a B.A. in Literature and History of fine Art in 1967. Following ten years of teaching at the Collège André Grasset in Montreal, Ms. Laperrière has devoted her energies exclusively to painting.

Ms. Laperrière creates dynamic images pulsating with so much energy that they appear to spring out of the canvas. The oil paintings of Denise Laperrière are derived from her interest in anthropology, in myths of creation, in history, and in her own emotional response to the world around her. One of the most striking characteristics of Ms. Laperrière's paintings is the highly personal mode of expression she employs, her use of private symbols and metaphors to racall universal myths and archetypes. She states that her images "express the life cycle, the gush of energy, the triumph of life over death."
Denise Laperrière seeks the essential, witch she expresses in intentionally restricted yet forceful hues, in order to illustrate the interplay of colour tones. Her themes are at once metaphor, geometry, and transfiguration - of women, men and animals seen as a whole, or in the process of evolving from one another.

Press Release
by Gallery Jarmain