Lisa Marie Boissonneau

Dates: July 3rd - August 28th

I Remember: A Tapestry of Inheritance

My artistic practice is rooted in an intimate exploration of hybrid identity, shaped by my personal experience of adoption and by the broader historical context of post–Second World War adoption policies. Born in New Brunswick to an unmarried mother and adopted by a Catholic couple in Quebec, I revisit the ruptures and reconstructions of family histories that marked this era.

Between 1945 and 1970, in Canada and throughout other allied nations including Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States dominant social values promoted the traditional nuclear family while strongly stigmatizing pregnancies outside marriage. Cultural expectations, social institutions, and various organizations including church-run maternity homes often encouraged unmarried mothers into surrendering their children for adoption. These practices, intended to place children in “traditional” households seeking to establish or expand a family, profoundly affected countless women and children across these countries.

Since 1988, women in Canada have had full control over decisions regarding their pregnancies, including access to abortion when motherhood does not align with their life plans. This stark contrast with the circumstances faced by unmarried mothers of previous generations highlights the evolution of social attitudes toward motherhood, family, and identity. It also informs my ongoing reflection on the ways societal structures shape individual lives and personal narratives.

Drawing from archival photographs of my adoptive family sacramental weddings, solemn first communions, and domestic interiors imbued with Catholic devotion, I create hybrid paintings that intertwine memory and imagination. The figures remain faithful to the likenesses captured in the original photographs, while the backgrounds evolve from abstraction into symbolic and recognizable spaces: wooden floors where evening prayers once echoed, shadows cast like silent presences, the St. Lawrence River and its wharf, or the ancestral home of my grandparents, where Catholic traditions were passed from one generation to the next.

These dreamlike environments, simultaneously grounded in religious and familial heritage and fragmented by personal history, invite viewers to project their own memories: an aunt hanging laundry from a balcony, a vintage automobile parked beside a church, a family ritual shaped by faith. In doing so, they become 2 participants in a shared tapestry of remembrance, weaving emotional connections between intertwined lives and histories.

Over the past eighteen months, my practice has expanded to include hooked wool portraits on linen, a tactile medium that deepens the sensory and handcrafted dimensions of memory. My current work, The Sacrament of My Parents’ Marriage, brings together approximately forty figures rendered in wool on linen, transforming a family photograph into a monumental tapestry. This body of work, initiated in 2020, continues to evolve through my ongoing genealogical research on Ancestry.ca where I have reconnected with several members of my biological family. Through painting and weaving, I bear witness to the enduring impact of these historical circumstances on individual lives while connecting the past to contemporary questions of belonging, migration, family reconfiguration, and the digital tools that are reshaping our understanding of ancestry and kinship.

Each work represents another step in my search for identity and inheritance, inviting reflection on how our origins and the social values of our time shape who we become. I Remember: A Tapestry of Inheritance becomes a space where memory, self-discovery, and intergenerational connection converge, offering fertile ground for personal affirmation and collective reflection.

Visit Lisa’s website here.

Lisa Marie Boissonneau is a Canadian visual artist originally from Moncton, New Brunswick, who lives and works in Saint-Alexis-des-Monts, Quebec. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Concordia University, specializing in drawing, painting, and sculpture.

For over three decades, Boissonneau has maintained an active artistic practice, exhibiting her work in solo and group exhibitions across Canada. Drawing from family archives, genealogy, and personal history, she explores themes of memory, identity, belonging, and intergenerational transmission.

Born in New Brunswick and adopted by a family in Quebec, her work investigates the intersections of biological and adoptive heritage through painting and textile- based practices. Recent works combine acrylic painting with hooked wool portraits on linen, transforming archival photographs into contemporary explorations of remembrance, ancestry, and family history.

Through her multidisciplinary practice, Boissonneau invites viewers to reflect on the ways personal and collective histories shape identity across generations.

I Remember: A Tapestry of Inheritance

I Remember: A Tapestry of Inheritance traces the evolution of a body of work initiated in 2020 and devoted to a continuous exploration of hybrid identity, belonging, and the search for origins within both the historical and contemporary contexts of adoption and family structures. The exhibition brings together a selection of hybrid acrylic paintings, recent hooked wool portraits on linen, and a monumental work currently in progress.

At the heart of the project is a treasured collection of archival photographs passed down through my adoptive family. These images witnesses to a bygone era have become an inexhaustible source of inspiration and a point of departure for revisiting forgotten stories, fragments of lived experience, and intergenerational connections. They have prompted me to investigate the histories of both my adoptive and biological families and to consider how those
histories continue to shape my own life.

The exhibition highlights both the thematic continuity and material evolution of the series. Acrylic paintings engage in dialogue with woven wool portraits on linen, a medium that has become increasingly central to my practice. The work currently underway, The Sacrament of My Parents’ Marriage, brings together approximately forty woven figures on a linen support, transforming a family photograph into a monumental tapestry. This transition from brush to thread deepens the tactile and sensory dimensions of memory while maintaining the same narrative thread: weaving together past and present, religious and family heritage, and biological and adoptive histories.

The historical context remains a foundational element of the project. Between 1945 and 1970, social pressures in Canada and other Allied countries strongly promoted the traditional nuclear family and often led to adoptions that were imposed upon or heavily encouraged for unmarried mothers. This history is placed in dialogue with the present day, when women in Canada exercise full reproductive autonomy. The evolution of social attitudes toward motherhood, family, and identity fuels an ongoing inquiry into how societal frameworks shape both individual and collective life trajectories.