Lyne Lapointe exhibits
The Pregnant Woman
Arts Sutton hosts the multidisciplinary artist’s new series until September 18, 2022
July 28, 2022
The exhibition La femme enceinte by multidisciplinary artist Lyne Lapointe, presented at the Arts Sutton art centre, addresses in a metaphorical yet straightforward manner the thorny issue of the pregnant woman’s body.
The recent overturning of the Roe vs. Wade decision by the U.S. Supreme Court represents, still today, the overwhelming evidence of the power of a majority of men and of religious dogmatism over women’s bodies. The artist establishes a striking parallel between the fate of beaten, missing and killed women and that of animals, so many of whose species are on the verge of extinction.
The exhibition addresses in a metaphorical yet straightforward manner the thorny issue of the pregnant woman’s body.
In the works in the exhibition, Lapointe has taken the iconography of an anatomical plate of the silhouette of a pregnant woman from the book Dr. Hollicks Complete Works – The Marriage Guide published in 1902 in Philadelphia, USA.
The mother-to-be in this guide has no head or feet (ni-queue-ni-head), a stark reminder of how little space women had at the time. Although society has gradually become more egalitarian thanks to the epic struggles of women over the past century, how can we not see in this recent decision of the U.S. Supreme Court a leap backwards by more than fifty years and a dangerous rapprochement with theocracies that flout women’s rights?
At the same time, we are witnessing a denial of climate change by a significant portion of the American population and elected officials. The Republican right wing denies the deleterious effects of global warming on wildlife, plants, water resources and people everywhere.
Just recently, this same U.S. Supreme Court drastically limited the powers of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel power plants.
‘The artist has imagined a hybrid character, a woman/animal, whose body is that of a pregnant woman and whose “extremities” belong to animals.’
For this exhibition, Lyne Lapointe has imagined a hybrid character, a woman/animal, whose body is that of a pregnant woman and whose “extremities” belong to animals. This is how we discover La femme-héron, La femme-mouton, La femme-beeille, La femme-louve and several others.
The artist offers us, always with sensitivity and irony, heartbreaking and striking works of great beauty, through which she invites us to reflect on our disturbing times.
Lyne Lapointe
Lyne Lapointe is one of Quebec’s leading artists. She began her career in the early 1980s with Martha Fleming. The duo created memorable projects until 1995 in disused spaces, including the Museum of Science (1984) and La Donna Delinquenta (1987). Fleming & Lapointe, the name of their collective, have also worked elsewhere in Canada, the United States and Latin America.
Since 1995, Lyne Lapointe pursues a prolific solo artistic practice in which she addresses issues that are always relevant, including that of the human body, which, in her eyes, is a political object. She is currently showing work at the Jack Shainman Gallery: The School, Kinderhook, New York, in the group exhibition Stressed World (June 5 – December 3, 2022).
‘Lyne Lapointe pursues a prolific solo artistic practice in which she addresses issues that are always relevant, including that of the human body, which, in her eyes, is a political object.’
Earlier in the fall of 2021, the Roger Bellemare and Christian Lambert Galleries in Montreal devoted an exhibition to him entitled De la soie aux poils de porc-épic. In La femme enceinte it will also be a question of the body, that of the woman, the pregnant woman, and that of the animals, which still undergo the control of the man.
The idea of the domination of women and animals by man has been rooted since time immemorial. Lyne Lapointe draws a striking parallel between women who have been beaten, disappeared and killed and animals who have suffered an equally harmful fate, many of whose species are endangered.
For this serious and sometimes dark subject, the artist has created singular works of great beauty through which she leads us to reflect further on this state of affairs, with sensitivity and irony.
La femme enceinte, by Lyne Lapointe
Opening on Sunday, July 31, 2022, from 2 to 4 pm
Sylvie Lacerte, curator
Arts Sutton Art Center
7 Academy Street, Sutton QC
450 538-2563
Images from the series La femme enceinte, by Lyne Lapointe
Courtesy of the Arts Sutton Center
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