Louise Laplante

Louise Laplante’s work is very introspective. Her pastels reflect her relationship with the materials she is using and explore those creatures whose interactions with that world are pure and simple. Her oil stick pieces extend this exploration with color and texture and her collages allow her to create worlds of her own.

Her pastels are inspired by her attraction to old paper for its contents, its images, and its aged beauty. They employ the stains, discoloration, stray marks, and creases on these old sheets that give them a richness not possible with new paper. She uses stencil-like silhouettes worked densely on the existing text or music notes on the paper that form their backgrounds.

Working in collage allows for free association, using vintage periodical and book images to create discrete worlds merging image, color, and placement. They play with concepts and redefine reality. Their elements are combined intuitively sometimes with an idea of what she wants to achieve and sometimes just letting the elements themselves drive the image, one thing leading to another.

There is always something of a surrealist element to collage, letting logic and reality go. These works are driven either by the text in a chosen element or by the configuration of that element. The results are pictorial “dreams,” bits of reality recombined to produce a new free form invented world.

She is exploring her continuing fascination with black birds and how they move in the world in her oil pastels. Using simple shapes as landscapes or simple color backgrounds in vibrant hues complement the dark black birds as they interact with that world.

Resume

Exhibitions

2022 Mixed Media Show, Dover Art Association, Dover, New Hampshire
The Summer Show, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, New York
Corporal Gestures – An Exhibition of Contemporary Collage, School of Architecture, Portland State University,
Portland, Oregon
Collage: Departures and Adaptions, Nan Fleming and Louise Laplante, Anchor House of Artists, Northampton,
Massachusetts
Dodge and Burn, ArtsWorcester, Worcester, Massachusetts

2021 Looking Forward, Carter Burden Gallery, New York, New York
Revitalized, Stove Factory Gallery, Charlestown, Massachusetts
Variations, Marblehead Arts Association, Marblehead, Massachusetts

2020 Natural Worlds, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, New York
National Prize Show, Cambridge Art Association, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Providence National, Providence, Rhode Island
The Newport Annual, Newport Art Museum, Newport, Rhode Island

2019 Creatures Big and Small, GR Gallery, Stamford, Connecticut
Collage, Site: Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York
Mediums of Exchange, Lehman College Art Gallery, Lehman College, CUNY, Bronx, New York

2018 Figures We Fancy, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, New York
Shelter, A.P.E. Gallery, Northampton, Massachusetts
Material Flow: Rhythm in Collage and Sculpture, Pratt Gallery, Goddard College, Plainfield, Vermont

2017 Abstractions in Black and White, Gallery 175 Pawtucket, Rhode Island
Blanche Ames National, Borderlands, North Easton, Massachusetts
Five Points Biennial, Five Points Gallery, Torrington, Connecticut
A Declaration of Sentiments: Reflections on the Centennial of Women’s Right to Vote in NYS, Athens
Cultural Center, Athens, New York

2016 Winter Exhibit, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, New York

2015 Boston Biennial 4, Atlantic Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts
Drawing, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, New York
Taking Root: Caniskek and the Meeting of Two Worlds, Athens Cultural Center, Athens, New York
North Northeast, Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, Brattleboro, Vermont
NBMMA 45th Exhibition, New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut

2014 New Directions ’14, Barrett Art Center, Poughkeepsie, New York
Connecticut Women Artists – 85th National, Slater Memorial Museum, Norwich, Connecticut
New England Collective V, Galatea Fine Art, Boston, Massachusetts
Boston Biennial 3, Atlantic Works Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts

2013 Storytellers and Conjurers, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, New York

2012 Works on Paper, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, New York
Drawing, b.j. spoke gallery, Huntington, New York
Strange Glue, Thompson Gallery, Weston, Massachusetts
Silhouette, A.P.E., Northampton, Massachusetts
The Cadence of Familiarity, Krauss Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island

2011 20th Anniversary Exhibition, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, New York
Paperworks, Paper City Studios, Holyoke, Massachusetts
Small Works, Towne Gallery, Wheelock College, Boston, Massachusetts

2010 Text/Context, McCoy Gallery, Merrimack College, North Andover, Massachusetts
A Community of Artists, Danforth Museum of Art, Framingham, Massachusetts
Here and Gone: Presence, Absence, Memory and Time, Amy H. Carberry Fine Art Gallery,
Springfield Technical Community College, Springfield, Massachusetts

2009 Dreamscape, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, New York

2008 Small ’08, Wunderarts Gallery, Amherst, Massachusetts
Interaction: Louise Laplante and Liz Chalfin, Wunderarts Gallery, Amherst Massachusetts
Artists and Books, Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, Massachusetts
One Night, Pivot Gallery, Florence, Massachusetts

2007 20 Artists X 2 Feet, Wunderarts Gallery, Amherst, Massachusetts
Biennial 2007, New Hampshire Art Institute, Manchester, New Hampshire
Salon, Clark Gallery, Lincoln, Massachusetts

2006 Small: 20 Artists X 2 Feet, Wunderarts Gallery, Amherst, Massachusetts
Salon, Clark Gallery, Lincoln, Massachusetts

2004 On Paper, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, New York
Encaustics, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, New York
New Acquisitions, University Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts

2003 Hart Gallery, Northampton, Massachusetts

2002 The Belles of Amherst; Contemporary Women Artists in the Collection of the Mead Art Museum
and the University Gallery, Mead Art Museum, Amherst, Massachusetts

1998 Vessels: Louise Laplante & David Powers, Hart Gallery, Northampton, Massachusetts
Ten Women, Whistler House Museum of Art, Lowell, Massachusetts

1997 Self Portraits, Hart Gallery, Northampton, Massachusetts

1996 Painting Now, Bristol Art Museum, Bristol, Rhode Island
Louise Laplante, Milton Art Museum, Milton, Massachusetts

1995 New Work: Louise Laplante, St. Germaine Gallery, Springfield, Massachusetts
Drawings: Louise Laplante, Newspace Gallery, Manchester, Connecticut
Small Works, Pump House Gallery, Hartford, Connecticut

1994 Sesquicentennial Celebration, Rice Gallery, Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, New York
Two Artists, Cuneen-Hackett Cultural Center, Poughkeepsie, New York
Large Drawings – Louise Laplante, Canal Gallery, Holyoke, Massachusetts

1993 Louise Laplante, Geissler Gallery, Greenfield, Massachusetts
Drawing Now, Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, Massachusetts

1992 Louise Laplante, Pindar Gallery, New York, New York
Louise Laplante and Margaret Plaganis, Pump House Gallery, Hartford, Connecticut

1991 Small Objects, Nicole C. Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts
The Changing World, Pindar Gallery, New York, New York
Louise Laplante New Work, Nicole C. Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts

1989 New Artists: Gloria Winchler Memorial Exhibition, Currier Gallery, Manchester, New Hampshire
Figures and Faces, Gary Wortzel Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts
Louise Laplante, Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Massachusetts

1988 Paperworks, Clary-Miner Gallery, Buffalo, New York
Small But Monumental, Hera Gallery, Providence, Rhode Island

1987 The Subject is Water, Newport Art Museum, Newport, Rhode Island

1986 American Contemporary Women Artists, Gallery Triangle, Washington, DC

1985 Louise Laplante, The Gallery, Springfield Tech Community College, Springfield, Massachusetts
Louise Laplante Works on Paper, Hampshire College Gallery, Amherst, Massachusetts

1984 Works on Paper, F.A.C.E.T., Taos, New Mexico
Works on Paper, 100% Realart Gallery, Spokane, Washington

1983 Louise Laplante, Springfield Central Gallery, Springfield, Massachusetts
Rope, Drawings by Louise Laplante, Main Street Gallery, Amherst, Massachusetts
Women Artists, Herter Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts

1982 Two Artists Drawing, Gallery on Paper, Lenox, Massachusetts
Artists Self Portraits, Pratt Gallery, Amherst, Massachusetts
Small Works, Passepartout Gallery, Winooski, Vermont
Valley Artists ’82, The Gallery, Amherst, Massachusetts

1981 Invitational, Danco Gallery, Florence, Massachusetts

Bibliography

Corporal Gestures, 2022, exhibition catalog, p.133
Exhibizone 2020, Biafarin exhibition catalog, p. 86
Providence Art Club National Open, exhibition catalog, pp. 139-140
2020 National Prize Show, 2020, Cambridge Art Association, exhibition catalog, 2020
Mediums of Exchange, Bartholomew w. Bland, 2019 exhibition catalog, pp.14-15
“’Works on Paper’ Evokes Yesteryear, at Carrie Haddad Gallery”, Amy Griffin, Albany Times Union, September 26, 2012
Strange Glue: Collage at 100, catalog, essay Todd Bartell, Thompson Gallery, Weston, Massachusetts, 2012
Creative Quarterly No. 21, The Journal of Design and Art, December 2010
“Louise Laplante: Here and Gone”, Paul Bloomfield, Art New England, April/May 2010
“Burge, King, Laplante and Hammond at Haddad Gallery”, Hudson-Catskill Newspapers, Hudson, New York, November 8, 2009
“On Paper”, Daily Freeman, Kingston, New York, July 2, 2004
“The Belles of Amherst” Contemporary Women’s Art on View”, The Women’s Times, Northampton, Massachusetts, August 2002
“Two Artists, Shared Approach”, Gloria Russell, The Sunday Republican, Springfield, Massachusetts, August 2, 1998
“Parker Gallery, Whistler House Museum of Art, Ten Women”, Ellin Anderson, Art New England, June/July 1998
“Art by “Ten Women””, Ellin Anderson, The Haverhill Gazette, Haverhill, Massachusetts, March 19, 1998
“Variety in Whistler’s “Ten Women””, Otto Peter Erbar, The Lowell Sun, Lowell, Massachusetts, March 8, 1998
“Faces of Art” Anne-Gerard Flynn, The Springfield Times Union, Springfield, Massachusetts, May 5, 1997
“Canal Gallery”, Gloria Russell, The Sunday Republican, Springfield, Massachusetts, March 8, 1994
“Six University at Albany Graduates at Rice Gallery”, The Daily Gazette, Albany, New York, January 20, 1994
“At BCE Drawings Droll to Dramatic”, Christine Temin, The Boston Globe, Boston, Massachusetts, September 29, 1993
Gloria Winchler Memorial Exhibition, catalog essay by Marilyn F. Hoffman and Michael K. Komanecky, The Currier Gallery, Manchester, New Hampshire, 1989
“Art Scene: Louise Laplante” catalog interview by Martha Hoppin, Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Massachusetts, 1989
“Thinking Through Your Art”, Patricia Wright, The Daily Hampshire Gazette, Northampton, Massachusetts, March 29, 1989
“Art Scenes Offer Powerful Images”, Gloria Russell, The Sunday Republican, Springfield, Massachusetts, March 12, 1989
“Small is Beautiful”, Bill van Siclen, The Providence Journal, Providence, Rhode Island, February 12, 1986
“STCC/Springfield: Louise Laplante”, Art New England, November/December, 1985
“STCC/Louise Laplante”, Gloria Russell, The Sunday Republican, Springfield, Massachusetts September 29, 1985

Collections

MERZ Gallery, Sanquhar, Scotland
Kingsley and Company, San Francisco, California
Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts
Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Massachusetts
The Ontological Museum, Santa Fe, New Mexico
University Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts
University Gallery, SUNY Albany, Albany, New York
Private collections

Awards

2008 Recipient, Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund
2004 Finalist, Massachusetts Cultural Council Artists Grants, Drawing/Printmaking/Artist Books
1998 Finalist, Blanche E. Colman Award

Education

MA in Fine Art, State University of New York at Albany, New York
BFA, College of New Rochelle, New Rochelle, New York
Studied, Art Institute of Boston, Boston, Massachusetts

Represented by

Carrie Haddad, Hudson, New York