Alicia LaChance makes large scale, process driven paintings built up through layers of acrylic, casein, latex and spray paint on a fresco-secco ground over canvas. Mark making involves traditional brushwork, sign maker’s techniques, silk screen, taping, powdered pigment stains, scraping and sanding. LaChance’s work conveys a layering and compression of multicultural traditions and art historical references, from ancient folk traditions to street art. Her highly worked paintings use open source graphs as compositional map and armature to hang intellectual ideas from as they relate to pushing boundaries in abstraction and process, as well as, pulling in contemporary social cues.
LaChance creates a color code derived from shared palettes across cultures. The use of open source data visualization for composition appealed to the artist for their botanical nature. The architecture of the graphs dictates multi-spoked compositions that operate as character sets. The artist charges each ‘deck’ with a graphic language or semiotics that hint at the possibility of an Esperanto, or universal language. Inherently, as the density of patterns, colors and symbols compile, an abstract arena takes place at center. The work reads with a simultaneity that can be at once flat and labyrinthine, tornadic map-like marks that feel like urban landscape , while too, a field of Jungian shadows and light. The paintings want to read as an extension of nature and echo of our accelerated modernity, a cacophony of single voices mashed up in a 21st century pull for order and stasis. The paintings read with no beginning or end but a sense of evolution – a plot pointed to mark where we are now.
LaChance was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri – 1970. After living abroad and on both coasts the artist returned to her hometown to raise her three children. In addition to becoming a full time painter in 2002, she co-founded Hoffman LaChance Contemporary in 2004. HLC has had over 100 exhibitions featuring local, regional and national artists and curators.
Her works have been selected as a survey of American painting by Julie Rodriguez Widholm, Associate Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and by Kelly Shindler, Associate Curator of The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. Most recently, her New Village series has been exhibited at The Evansville Museum of Art, History and Science (2017). Her body of work, Ornament of Grammar, was selected by Art News contributing writer, Jason Hoelscher, for a three woman exhibition, Flat Bed Picture Planes at Georgia Southern University (2017). Duane Reed Gallery of St. Louis featured the New Village Series at Art Palm Springs (2017).
New Village was in a group exhibition, Survey of Midwestern Painters – New American Paintings, at The Elmhurst Art Museum (2016). James Danziger Gallery of New York featured the New Village Series at PULSE, Miami during Art Basel, Miami (2016). A survey of works exhibited at the Saint Louis University Museum of Art (2015). LaChance also exhibits with several galleries across the United States.
In 2013 LaChance brought over 20 local and regional mid-west artists to Aqua Art, Miami. This exhibition precipitated a few local artists achieving national representation.
Her works have been placed in significant collections such as Twitter; Estée Lauder headquarters, NY; UCSD Jacobs Medical Center – selected by Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Kathryn Kanjo and St. Louis International Airport among others. Most recently, her works have been placed in private collections in Japan, Israel, France, Switzerland and in the United States.
Alicia LaChance is a self-taught painter whose motivation has been fueled by a love of family, her community and our contemporary climate. She has countless hours of dedication to both her own work and the promotion of fellow artists for over 13 years through her gallery, Hoffman LaChance Contemporary. It is her hope to leave a lasting impact on the cultural landscape of her hometown through work ethic, innovation in painting and life long connections forged by shared values and vision in the arts.
LaChance creates a color code derived from shared palettes across cultures. The use of open source data visualization for composition appealed to the artist for their botanical nature. The architecture of the graphs dictates multi-spoked compositions that operate as character sets. The artist charges each ‘deck’ with a graphic language or semiotics that hint at the possibility of an Esperanto, or universal language. Inherently, as the density of patterns, colors and symbols compile, an abstract arena takes place at center. The work reads with a simultaneity that can be at once flat and labyrinthine, tornadic map-like marks that feel like urban landscape , while too, a field of Jungian shadows and light. The paintings want to read as an extension of nature and echo of our accelerated modernity, a cacophony of single voices mashed up in a 21st century pull for order and stasis. The paintings read with no beginning or end but a sense of evolution – a plot pointed to mark where we are now.
LaChance was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri – 1970. After living abroad and on both coasts the artist returned to her hometown to raise her three children. In addition to becoming a full time painter in 2002, she co-founded Hoffman LaChance Contemporary in 2004. HLC has had over 100 exhibitions featuring local, regional and national artists and curators.
Her works have been selected as a survey of American painting by Julie Rodriguez Widholm, Associate Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and by Kelly Shindler, Associate Curator of The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. Most recently, her New Village series has been exhibited at The Evansville Museum of Art, History and Science (2017). Her body of work, Ornament of Grammar, was selected by Art News contributing writer, Jason Hoelscher, for a three woman exhibition, Flat Bed Picture Planes at Georgia Southern University (2017). Duane Reed Gallery of St. Louis featured the New Village Series at Art Palm Springs (2017).
New Village was in a group exhibition, Survey of Midwestern Painters – New American Paintings, at The Elmhurst Art Museum (2016). James Danziger Gallery of New York featured the New Village Series at PULSE, Miami during Art Basel, Miami (2016). A survey of works exhibited at the Saint Louis University Museum of Art (2015). LaChance also exhibits with several galleries across the United States.
In 2013 LaChance brought over 20 local and regional mid-west artists to Aqua Art, Miami. This exhibition precipitated a few local artists achieving national representation.
Her works have been placed in significant collections such as Twitter; Estée Lauder headquarters, NY; UCSD Jacobs Medical Center – selected by Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Kathryn Kanjo and St. Louis International Airport among others. Most recently, her works have been placed in private collections in Japan, Israel, France, Switzerland and in the United States.
Alicia LaChance is a self-taught painter whose motivation has been fueled by a love of family, her community and our contemporary climate. She has countless hours of dedication to both her own work and the promotion of fellow artists for over 13 years through her gallery, Hoffman LaChance Contemporary. It is her hope to leave a lasting impact on the cultural landscape of her hometown through work ethic, innovation in painting and life long connections forged by shared values and vision in the arts.