Charlynne Lafontaine dedicated herself to glass in 1990. Her pursuit of blown glass began in 1993 and she was introduced to flamework in 2003. Lafontaine works and teaches in her studio, creating sculptures of flameworked glass and cast glass.

Her work has been featured in various publications as well as in the news. Since 2012, in partnerships, Lafontaine has carried out two public art commissions and was herself shortlisted for another. Lafontaine has participated in numerous exhibitions and her pieces are part of private collections in Canada and the United States. Some works have been modeled in fashion shows at the GAS (Glass Art Society) conferences at the Corning Museum of Glass, New York and in Murano, Italy. She received a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts (CCA) to subsidize her trip to Italy. In 2021, she received a CCA research and creation grant for her project “Living in a Culture of Appearance”. The City of Ottawa purchased her pieces “Hairbrush” (2019) and “Human Microbiome #2” (2023) for their permanent collection. Since 2015, Lafontaine has been the director of Loretta Studios and Gallery.

Artist Statement:

Although my work has an anthropological focus, each artwork has its own connection to biological forms, whether to the human realm or to the plant, fungi or micro-organism varieties. It is easy to draw metaphors from these biological entities as they associate to our culture or its effect on us. The interpolation of the organic forms with objects as they relate to fashion, the environment or social phenomena, speaks to both the atrophy and the development of our society. The use of biomorphic glass components allows for a distortion of reality, as well as the creation of pieces that are both visually stimulating and thought provoking.

I’ve struggled to breach the schism between the natural and human worlds for as long as I can remember. It seems that somehow these two worlds should be perceived as one world, a singular organic entity. While there is a longing for a connectedness to the natural world, the attitudes in our society and the way in which we conduct ourselves, seem to take us further from this goal. I believe that as individuals we can change our behaviour to address this dichotomy by examining the social values which generate a desire for more material goods and produce unnecessary waste. We are at a point in history where our survival as a species may lie in our ability to live in harmony with the natural world. By internalizing values which are in opposition to the current homocentric archetype, it seems to me that we should be able to tackle these problems. By altering our normative habits, change can happen more quickly than were we to wait for such actions to be legislated. Each of us is an environmental activist and the practices we choose will determine the health of our relationship with our ecology. 

Concern for the environment informs my practice. Through sculpture and installations, I explore how our society could change and hope to induce constructive impacts on the environment. My goal is to engage the viewer in a dialogue evoking positive relationships between the ecological paradigm and the human condition.

See more of Charlynne's work on her website or social media page.