Marie Lannoo

Curiosity, exploration, and intrigue, are defining elements at the core of Marie Lannoo’s artistic practice. Lannoo is a Saskatoon-based visual artist currently exploring colour as it exists at the atomic level. While fundamentally a painter, Lannoo utilizes an intense research-based practice to gather raw materials, develop ideas, and present the closest representation of what she has uncovered. Through mixed media, sculpture, and pigment-based painting methods, Lannoo’s paintings and sculptures explore how material and medium can relate to our own interactions with colour and colour theory. Lannoo’s upcoming exhibition the architecture of colour, at the University of Saskatchewan College Art Galleries, is the culmination of the last five years of Lannoo’s research and practice. Lannoo claims that there is “no excuse not to do work that isn’t properly looked into, I need to make use of my time in a purposeful way.” Through this exhibition, Lannoo is extracting and facilitating new experiences with colour.

The crux of Lannoo’s current work is her exploration of structural colour as it exists in its smallest form. Lannoo is conducting scientific research through an artists lens to look at the components of the physical space that is all around us, and the space that naturally exists on an atomic level. Though colour on this stratum is rarely visible, on a family trip to Iceland Lannoo encountered a mesmerizing blue colour emanating from the landscape. “It was light interacting with the silica sand in this geothermally heated crater, nothing else, it’s all-natural, and radiating this otherworldly blue. I thought to myself, I’ve got to find a way to recreate this experience when I get home.”(1) This experience was the impetus behind Lannoo’s deep dive into the theory behind structural colour. Researching structural colour has led Lannoo to experiment with unconventional pigments, sculpture, installation, and glazing methods, accumulating into a body of work that is both diverse in materials and focused in its subject matter.

Lannoo’s studio is in a constant state of progress, every wall and corner contains past, present, and future work being developed, improved, or revisited. An intense fascination with particular materials and technologies drives her current practice. Since her inspiring encounter in Iceland, Lannoo began to look at the fundamentally different experience of colour at the atomic level. Lannoo is investigating the inherently pigment-lessness of structural colour, therefore, breaking away from historically traditional applications of colour. Using a phosphorescent powder that is representative of the blue she experienced in Iceland, Lannoo offers the viewer a different experience of blue, or one that may act as a notion to a blue unseen by many. Lannoo looks at the physics of colour, and peels back these layers to extract scientific method and theory behind its components.

Lannoo is using sculptural elements in her work, such as reflective material and 3D printing technology to present her thoughts and findings on structural colour. This upcoming exhibition will feature a large 3D printed piece, and while still fundamentally a painter, through her research of material Lannoo has pulled her work out into space. Building layer upon layer of transparent colour, Lannoo’s paintings physically extend into space, directly relating to the layers of filament used in her 3D printed piece. This playful relation to technology is intentional, her use of materials is purposeful.

For her upcoming exhibition, Lannoo has consulted with specialists and physicists from the Canadian Light Source, Canada’s national synchrotron light source facility located on the University of Saskatchewan campus. This consultation encouraged Lannoo to investigate how light will impact the exhibition and display methods that interact with structural colour. “Whatever it is that drives one to start looking into something, you have to go to the sources of the knowledge that you need, extract these elements, then from the studio transform that knowledge into a more artistic transformation.”(2) She is using resources and connections from her surroundings to strengthen the conceptual and physical aspects of her work. There is an intentional mutual relationship at play here, as Lannoo is both working together with the campus galleries and scientific resources at the university.

Although Lannoo is presenting her ideas through an artistic lens and not a scientific one, she has a penchant for science and works to further her understanding of the concepts and theories behind the materials she utilizes in her work. Lannoo’s work is visual is its presentation, it is non-verbal and the scientific theory is not the talking point, nor does it intend it to be. Lannoo’s work is meant to intrigue and present new experiences to the viewer. These experiences may even feel otherworldly at times, but through Lannoo’s research, she is proving they are strictly rooted in science.

the architecture of colour opens Friday, September 20th at 7 pm at the College Art Galleries and will be up until December 21^st. Momus founding editor and publisher Sky Goodden has written the accompanying exhibition essay. Marie Lannoo will be presenting an artist talk on October 24th at 7 pm.

1.  Lannoo, Marie. Interview with Kyle Zurevinski. Audio recording. Saskatoon, SK, August 16, 2019.
2.  Lannoo, Marie. Interview with Kyle Zurevinski. Audio recording. Saskatoon, SK, August 16, 2019.