Elvira LaMontagne
Coral Springs, FL
“I have learned that I don’t do art to escape, but to connect to myself.”
Elvira LaMontagne (she/her/hers) translates her passion for architecture, love for bold color, and her main message of resilience, into bold and stunning art. At the age of three years old, Peruvian born Elvira was invited to an art exhibition by a German artist, and soon thereafter, with the encouragement of her mother, began to paint early in the morning, for hours and hours each day. Years later, Elvira is still impacted by this first introduction to art and how it directly led to her inexhaustible experimentation of color and fascination with geometric shapes, light, and compositions.
Young Elvira experimented with mixing paint, and slowly developed her style throughout the years, focusing on creating an emotional response through color and abstraction. She eventually moved to the United States and pursued a formal art education at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. In addition to this formal art education, Elvira also has an architectural and urban planning background that is influential in her work. She thinks of the complex layouts, cultures and movement within cities when creating her art, and the resulting work depicts her fascination with texture, shadows and layers. “My artwork is a celebration of people, places, and moments in time. My paintings begin by connecting the shapes of a place – these geometric representations are of places or experiences,” Elvira shares.
Elvira has also found painting to be a coping mechanism for chronic pain, which resulted from her experience with stage 4 cancer. She explains, “Art has been more than ever a vehicle not only to express myself but to connect with my own being. Because I can finally have a voice, I have been silent all these years about my disability.” She goes on to say, “Not all disabilities are seen, some are silent. I can be heard through my art and spread a message of ‘I don’t do anything of what I am not.’ In other words, just do what you love and therefore love what you do.”
Finding unlimited inspiration in words, music, people, cities, and even objects, her color palette’s offers lush violets, burgundy reds and bright oranges and yellows. Elvira shares, “my intense color palettes are influenced by the diversity of my Peruvian background or the South Florida celebration of colors.” Atop her compositions, Elvira adds silver and 24k gold leaf to her work to embellish and add elements of surprise and value for the viewer.
As an artist who has overcome cancer, working with ArtLifting allows Elvira to find community and support, as well as share her story. “ArtLifting is providing me a vehicle to make a contribution through my art to those who feel defeated by their limitations. I hope to inspire others to be resilient.” Though some days bring pain, Elvira remains grateful to be where she is today and hopeful about what the future holds for her, and her art.
