When Denise Lafontaine takes a bath, it's in a very fishy decor. Not only does the Montreal set painter love to do whimsical painterly things to her flat, she has also filled it with items from the 1940s and '50s. What she saw were high ceilings, pine floors, lots of closets and tall windows facing east and west that would give her sunlight all day long. Since then, the flat's dingy appearance has changed. The place is splashed with colour, with her original special effects behind every door.
Paint is fun to work with.
If I don't like it, its easy to change. Making time in between professional assignments, Lafontaine tackled one room at a time, working wherever her inspiration led. The closet-size, windowless bathroom was the first to get her playful treatment as she transformed the bleak space into a fishbowl world filled with tiny fish and branches of seaweed. Schools of fish in clay, plastic and glass, suspended from the ceiling and attached to walls, appear to be floating in a deep sea. When the linoleum in the kitchen became squishy underfoot, she knew it was time to tackle that room.