Josee Lord

A self-taught painter born in Trois-Rivières, Josee Lord is known for her richly coloured still lifes where form and content fluidly shift. Using warm earth tones and vivid reds, she creates a dynamic interplay between floral subjects and textile backdrops. Her signature black pastel contours—applied by hand—highlight a tactile connection to the medium. Lord’s compositions evoke both sensuality and ambiguity, offering a distinctive approach to contemporary still life. She is represented by Koyman Galleries in Ottawa.Josee Lord was born in 1964 in Trois-Rivieres. A self-taught painter, her journey through art started at a young age. Her painting is distinguished by colours that are both intense and warm: earth tones, ochre, sienna and umber meet yellow cadmium and vibrant red to shape the perspective of her still life flowers.

The way in which she displays wall hangings and cloths creates a blissful ambiguity where content and form blend together: sometimes the still life flowers become the content and the wall hanging takes its place as the main subject, sometimes the role is reversed, the flowers come to the foreground, and the process begins again for the delight of the onlooker. A black pastel stroke outlines the contours of the forms. The artist applies this stroke with her own hands. She is compelled to come into direct contact
with the material, to touch it in order to bring out its sensuality.

Josee’s artwork can be seen at La Galerie Iris in Baie-St-Paul, and Koyman Galleries in Ottawa, and is part of several private collections in Toronto, Trois-Rivieres, Nun’s Island, Quebec City, and Montreal.