#099 - Summer Camp '23 - William LaChance
#099 - Summer Camp '23 - William LaChance
Destination: Joseph, Oregon
Date: 11 - 15 September, 2023
About William LaChance
The paintings of William LaChance embrace the collision of unlike parts to create hybrid, unfamiliar experiences associating displaced forms and colors cribbed from graphic design, fashion, art history and nature itself using an equally diverse variety of methods and materials from painting and printmaking to assemblage and sewing. They openly blur the boundary between high art and applied arts not only in principle but in practice- lending themselves to various manner of surface design, from textiles to fully realized earthworks.
You can find more work of William LaChance on his website: www.williamlachance.com
Destination: Joseph, Oregon
In the far east of Oregon, close to the border of both Washington and Idaho, you can find the small city of Joseph, situated next to Wallowa Lake and at the foot of the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. On Main street you’ll find the landmark Jennings Building, this brick dating all the way back to 1910 has been revamped into an art and design focused boutique hotel in 2014 and is hub for the creatives of Joseph and the rest of Oregon. The perfect location for our fifth annual Jaunt Summer Camp.
Learn more about The Jennings Hotel: www.jenningshotel.com
Details about the print
Dimensions: ± 50 x 70 cm
Medium: three colours
Edition: edition of 50, signed and numbered by the artist
A little word from William…
The Summer Camp was a great change of pace from my routine studio practice to hanging out with a group of just artists. Getting to know them on a personal level and observing their processes was amazing. It felt a little like being in art school all over again and I loved every minute of it!
The natural beauty of Joseph made a lot of impression on me. It felt vast and tiny at the same time. The idea of this part of the country looms large in the collective conscience as the subject of so many movies etc. Having never been there before I was surprised by the verisimilitude of these portrayals. The area seems unchanged in many ways. Even the town was like a movie set and after a couple of days of remembering faces the residents seemed like characters in a play.
For the print, I made an image to reflect the idea of the landscape being like a theater or film set and taking on a narrative quality by virtue of its residents. The image is a grisaille, painterly abstract landscape populated by a single, overtly artificial figure silhouette. The figure itself is adorned with a nature based pattern that is a nod to Nez Perce beadwork. The figure / ground relationship and shallow, plastic space are meant to recall antique puppet theaters to emphasize the idea of narrative and artifice.
