Christine Vaillancourt

Christine Vaillancourt lives and paints at the Artist Building Cooperative 300 Summer Street, Boston since 1995. She has been active in the Fort Point Arts Community (FPAC) since 1992.

In 2018, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) selected Vaillancourt to create public art for Boston’s new Green Line Extension (GLX) at Ball Square Station, completed December 2022. She had the experience of regularly meeting with her team of GLX and MBTA engineers and designers for years on this project that asked that art be part of the design rather than an afterthought. Her paintings are transformed into glass art on the outdoor elevator tower as well as on two 4’ x 8’ porcelain enamel on steel platform panels. The neighborhood’s colorful shingled houses adorned with angular rooflines and railed porches inspired Vaillancourt’s design. The resulting work is emblematic of her style of geometric abstraction with dancing motifs reminiscent of machinery, automation, and movement.

Christine Vaillancourt’s paintings draw from contemporary industrial urban design and architecture with a nod to patterns and designs of the 1950s. Vaillancourt’s family has a long history with the automotive and aeronautic design industry. Two great-grandfathers designed and built horse-drawn carriages in Amesbury, MA. Her grandfather, father and uncle designed automobiles and airplanes in Detroit. Vaillancourt’s father evolved into home design and construction. Growing up in this creative atmosphere, she developed a passion for the transportation, architectural and industrial concepts of the times into the present.

While Vaillancourt’s paintings do reference present day architecture and design, her aim is to bridge time. The bold geometric forms are not hard-edged, but rather imperfect, soft-edged, revealing the human hand. The imagery is sculptural or mobile-like; the shapes appear poised to move and sometimes gently bump the edges of the painting or float into space. The work is meant to create a mood of time passing as well as a timeless connection to the future.

Christine Vaillancourt earned her degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Rhode Island School Design. Her paintings are in private and corporate collections in the United States, Canada and abroad. She is presently represented by Dean Day Gallery, Houston and Nikola Rukaj Gallery, Toronto