Strauss Bourque-LaFrance (b. 1983, Poland Spring, ME) plays on stylistic tropes within the canon of abstraction, dismantling formal associations with histories, nostalgia, and memory. As a queer painter, Bourque-LaFrance evades a defining style and instead pushes disparate techniques and ideas together, creating an image that is familiar but difficult to define. You can see how he translated his style into a coloring book page in Between the Lines: An RxART Coloring Book by Contemporary Artists – Volume 9.
Bourque-LaFrance earned a BA from Hampshire College, Amherst, MA; an MFA from Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, PA; and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME. Bourque-LaFrance has staged solo exhibitions across the US and internationally, at venues including T29, Rome, Italy and the Northampton Center for the Arts, Northampton, MA. He has been included in exhibitions at The Kitchen, New York, NY; The Clifford Gallery at Colgate University, Hamilton, NY; ICA Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA; The Contemporary Austin, Austin, TX; Abrons Art Center, New York, NY; The Judson Memorial Church, New York, NY; and Sculpture Center, New York, NY; among many others. The artist was a recipient of the Northampton Arts Council Grant, Northampton, MA; an Artist in Residence at Dance and Process, The Kitchen, New York, NY; and an Artist in Residence at Movement Research, New York, NY. Bourque-LaFrance lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.