Artist Highlight: Canadian abstract artist Marie Lannoo March 09 2026

Wall Fiction presents available works from Canadian abstract artist Marie Lannoo. 

(Image: As published on the University of Saskatchewan, Creativity in Quarantine, Boklaschuck, 2022)

As an abstract painter and colour theorist, Lannoo has spent more than three decades applying layers of translucent acrylic colour to a range of surfaces. 

Her work moves fluidly between abstraction and representation, using colour as both a visual language and a subject of study. 

Based in Saskatoon, Lannoo emphasizes on how landscape and place shape her work. She notes that Saskatoon receives some of the highest levels of sunlight in Canada, a quality of light that she describes conducive to the work she creates. As she explains, “colour here [in the prairies] is clean, clear, transparent and huge in terms of depth of field.” (Mendel Art Gallery, 2012) 

For Lannoo, colour is inherently unstable. In some works, she juxtaposes complementary colours, finding moments of balance where flux and transition emerge. While her work reflects formal concerns of abstraction, Lannoo softens the hard edges often associated with Prairie abstraction, introducing subtle shifts and atmospheric depth.  Colour, as she describes it, “becomes a portal of heat, a beacon of light and a direct conduit to sensation.” Her colour-field paintings explore that sensation in how light and colour interact, creating subtle shifts as the viewer looks.

Most recently in 2024, Contemporary Calgary presented a solo exhibition of thirty-six works the artist created over the period of COVID. In Extremis, curated by Wayne Baerwaldt, highlights her non-objective exploration of light through lens shaped by art and science, intuition and process.

“Lannoo has achieved what many painters strive for throughout their careers, that is, the controlled application of layers of colour that vibrate, pulsate, resonate, and radiate the energy of colour to create sensations of experience in the viewer. Light interacts with Lannoo’s skillfully rendered layers of transparent acrylic to change its luminosity. As the layers interact, the overall illumination of the colours is revealed. Lannoo’s skill in achieving an unparalleled luminosity and complexity in painting is the focus of In Extremis.”

--- Wayne Baerwaldt, Guest Curator at Contemporary Calgary

For further information about the artist and available collection, please click here. 

Marie Lannoo, "Stretch #5", 2008. Available on Wall Fiction.

(Newzones, Marie Lannoo: Thin Places, 2008)

Lannoo’s work has been exhibited widely across Canada and internationally, including Contemporary Calgary, University of Saskatchewan, the Lightbox, Art Gallery of Alberta, Hong Kong Arts Center. Her work is held in public and private collections such as The Government of Alberta, Canada Council Art Bank, University of Saskatchewan, Remai Modern, Robert McLaughlin Gallery, and others.