ELEANOR CROTEAU-LABRANCHE

Eleanor Croteau-LaBranche makes paintings and collages about nature, transformation, and light. She often uses  surrealism, spiritual experiences, and poetry as inspiration for her work.

Croteau-LaBranche grew up in Southern New Hampshire and made a home in Manchester with her husband in 2019. She teaches Visual Art full time to Elementary aged students in Exeter, NH and is a mother to an energetic toddler. She grew up with a single father as her primary parental figure and she has come to see her art practice as a nurturing and encouraging mother figure that has instilled a deep understanding of her creative voice and self-worth.

Croteau-LaBranche holds a BFA from The New Hampshire Institute of Art. She has exhibited work on the New Hampshire Seacoast at Art Up Front Street and Anahata Gallery in Exeter, NH.

Artist Statement

Plant shapes, a sun soaked palette, and surreal spaces are used within my work to reflect upon the visual and textural qualities of earth, air, fire, and water. Deeper under the surface, I use these natural items as symbols to ruminate spiritual theories surrounding the human consciousness, spirit, and "planes" of existence outside of the time and space.

  A beet transforming under the earth may represent our physical, resting fetal selves. A root umbilical cord tethering us as we transform. A window may represent a barrier to another world, a realm of spirit and light. I feel an access to something universal when painting these rising and illuminated plants, whom I wish to give a hum all their own.