Finding Home in Distant Places
Nicole LeBoutillier is a Canadian artist working across installation, drawing, and object based practices. Her work uses everyday objects to explore impermanence and trace. Through processes of repetition and subtle alteration, she creates works that reflect a presence, absence, and the shifting conditions of place.
Her practice is grounded in site-specific gallery installations in which assembled objects are configured in response to spatial, material, and contextual conditions. In parallel, she develops project series of works each dedicated to a specific mode of working combining collected objects into assemblages.
Across both modalities, her approach is process-oriented and accumulative, unfolding over time through a sustained engagement with material. The work is informed by sensory knowledge through which place is registered not as a fixed image but as an evolving trace. Through this interplay of material and time, her practice investigates the ways in which space and place are perceived, internalized and reconstituted.
Nicole grew up in the heart of the prairie province of Manitoba where the endless sky inspired her to travel beyond its horizon. She received a Masters of Fine Arts from Emily Carr University of Art and Design (2020) and a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree (1993) from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. In between she has lived abroad as an expat in Angola, Kuwait, Malaysia, Libya, Tunisia, Ukraine and Oman. She currently spends time in the coastal city of Mazatlan, Mexico during the winters returning to the East Kootenays in beautiful British Columbia every summer.
Nicole LeBoutillier
Born in 1969 in Minnedosa, Canada
Resides and works in Mazatlan, Mexico
Education:
2020 Master of Fine Arts Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Vancouver, Canada
1993 Bachelor of Fine Arts, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, Canada
Selected Exhibitions:
2025 Rurality, Solo Exhibition, Art Gallery of Golden, Golden BC, Canada
2023 Paper Trails, Installation, Columbia Valley Arts Cultural Center, Invermere, Canada
2022 Love Letter to the Landfill, Installation, Revelstoke Art Gallery, Revelstoke, Canada
2020 spaces BETWEEN, Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Vancouver, Canada
2020 Thesis Studio Open House, Mazatlan Mexico
2016 Horizon Lines, Zatelier Gallery, Tunis Tunisia
2015 Urban Drawings Series, Pynelogs Cultural Centre, Invermere, Canada
2013 Urban Drawing Installation, Open Spaces Window Gallery, Calgary, Canada
2013 Urban Drawings Series, Epcor Centre Window Gallery #17 Calgary, Canada
2012 I Can’t See the Forest, Epcor Centre Window Gallery #17, Calgary, Canada
2010 Group Show, Fishmarket Studios, Calgary, Canada
2010 TallTree Series, Pynelogs Cultural Centre, Invermere, Canada
2009 Mosque, Monoprint, Leighton Arts Centre Members Juried Art Exhibit, Alberta, Canada
2006 Lucky Bamboo, Drawings, Open Studio, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
2003 Espera, Drawings, Marie-France Bergerot Gallery, Luanda, Angola
2002 Spider Lilies, Drawings, Hotel Tropico Gallery, Luanda, Angola
2000 Lillies & Porcelain Roses, Galerie de l’Alliance Francaise, Luanda, Angola
1997 Inside Out, Drawings & Installation, Dartmouth Heritage Center, Dartmouth, Canada
1993 Empty, Installation, Anna Leonowens Gallery III, Halifax, Canada
Grants/awards/residencies:
2022, Empire of Dirt Residency, Creston, Canada
2018, Gushul Art Studio Residency, Blairmore, Canada
2015, Art Print Residency, Arenys del Mar, Spain
2012, Small Project Grant, Urban Drawing Project, Calgary, Canada
1990, Florence Madelaine Perry Memorial Award, Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, Brandon,Canada
Arts Involvement
2022 -2025, Owner/Facilitator, Costa Azul Arts Space,, Mazatlan, Mexico
2013-2016, Artist Studio Rue Juba, Tunis, Tunisia
2012-2013, Instructor: Learning Through the Arts Educational Programs, Calgary, Canada
2010-2012, Member of Arts Collective: Fish Market Studios, Calgary, Alberta
2010, Volunteer, Visiting Artist, Leighton Arts Centre, Educational Programs, Alberta
2009 Instructor, Program Outreach Facilitator, Art Gallery of Calgary, Calgary, Canada
2008, Instructor & Docent: Art Gallery of Calgary, Calgary, Canada
2005-2007, Artist Studio, Tripoli, Libya
2004, Mentee: Studio Artist with Ali Salem Salmiya; Kuwait City, Kuwait
1998-2003, Artist Studio, Luanda, Angola
1997, Mentee: Women’s Artists Mentoring Program, The New Gallery, Calgary Alberta
Press/publications:
“Ties That Bind” Exhibition Catalogue, Vancouver, Canada, 2020
“Clothes make the artist” in The Chronicle Herald, Halifax, Canada February 20, 1997
Collections:
Nova Scotia Art Bank Collection, Halifax, Canada
Various national and international private collections