EXPO CHICAGO

WILLIAM LACHANCE 

William Lachance is best known for his brightly coloured abstract work. His ‘constructed paintings’ are often labour-intensively created from a combination of paint on canvas that are re-sewn together, or in other instances, a multitude of painted wooden segments are broken down and reconfigured like a giant jigsaw puzzle. Most recently, he has been experimenting with sculpture, exploring how his works can expand into totem-like pillars that exemplify his keen sense of humor and the proficiency with which he plays with colour and pattern combinations. Lachance also expounds his work into the world – and his instantly recognizable aesthetic has been applied to murals, brand-marketing, and most notably, to revitalize inner-city basketball courts for disadvantaged youth with the charity Project Backboard. The works take their cue from the immediacy of signs, symbols, and semiotics in contemporary consumerist culture – including vintage graphic design, and illustration. Most often, however, LaChance keenly explores the enveloping space behind and around isolated areas, forgotten locations, and anti-spaces: a kind of revitalization of the dystopian – from airport parking lots to now defunct Modernist architecture. There is a Romanticism to LaChance’s approach, a desire to embrace and to look beyond what is depicted and to create a new-found language for these disparaged sites. And while Lachance’s abstract paintings create a seductive, wholly gleaming surface, they maintain a subtle subversion of their sources, a sort of wry, keenly aware critique of the appeal of the mass produced – as though critical of a futurist vision of society while functioning within it.

WILLIAM LACHANCE (b. 1971, St Louis, Missouri) lives and works in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He graduated with a BFA from The Kansas City Art Institute and MFA from Indiana University. Solo exhibitions include a ‘Crossroads Location’, Haw Contemporary, Kansas, USA (2019); a debut with Madison Gallery, San Diego (2019); a booth-wide installation at Expo Chicago with Beers London (2018); ‘After Edge City’, Beers London, (2018); Art Athina, Athens, Greece (2017), Rod Bianco Gallery, Oslo, Norway (2017), Direktorenhaus, Berlin, Germany, (2017), Junior Space, Melbourne, Australia (2017). Group exhibitions include: R/SF Projects, San Francisco (2018); and The Hole, NY (2017). He has been featured extensively in both online and printed press. He first showed with BEERS London in the group show ’75 Works on Paper’ (2017) and continues to maintain an active schedule with the gallery at both international art-fairs and gallery exhibitions.