BIOGRAPHY

Destanne was admitted to the Master of Fine Art degree during convocation in August 2009 at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, Australia. Destanne's passion for nature and wilderness has inspired her on adventures to paint the Rocky Mountains in Canada and to kayak the rolling waves on the Tasman Sea. Life experiences have taught her to ride the waves gratefully.

Destanne received a BFA (Honours) Degree in Painting and Drawing from the University of Victoria in 1987. After ten years of raising a young family and managing a cabin resort in Jasper National Park, Destanne began to pursue her passion for painting full-time. Primarily an oil painter of landscapes, her practice and work was based upon her direct experiences in nature while on adventures into wilderness and natural environment areas. She was very fortunate to have Doris McCarthy, one of Canada’s highly regarded landscape painters as a mentor, and also contemporary landscape painter, David Alexander.

As Destanne’s career progressed she partook in workshops and artist-in-residence programs; she became a juried member of the Alberta Society of Artists; she was represented by three galleries in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan; she participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions in both public and commercial galleries, in addition to various special projects; and her paintings were purchased by many international private collectors and may be found in corporate collections, including the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and the Consulate General, Japan.

Destanne’s love of a challenge and the journey led her to leave the Rocky Mountains in 2003 to pursue post-graduate research at the University of Tasmania in Australia. One of the four strengths of the University is Wilderness and Natural Environment Studies, where a strong link and concentration exists in the University of Tasmania School of Art. While living and studying in Hobart, Destanne exhibited her paintings at the Entrepot Gallery at the University of Tasmania and in a group exhibition entitled, Propinquity and Distance, which was curated by Mary Pridmore, at the Carnegie Gallery in Hobart.


Upon returning to Canada in 2006, Destanne moved to Vernon, British Columbia, to live, paint and complete her MFA studies. Destanne's MFA research project entitled, painted pools: a lens into subjectivity, explored the concept of water as a metaphor for life. Selected works from the water series project were exhibited at the fina Gallery at the University of British Columbia Okanagan in 2008.


Destanne's painting, Temperance, has been curated into a group exhibition, ROW: Reflections on water, at Touchstones Nelson Museum of Art and History from September 12 to November 22, 2009. Curated by Deborah Thompson this is 'an exhibition about water and its symbolic associations'.
Website: www.touchstonesnelson.ca




Landscape and place, embodiment, Romanticism, alchemy, and metaphor and symbols in material culture are Destanne's research interests.

Destanne has reignited her passion for mountain life in 2010. She is thrilled to be represented, once again, by Mountain Galleries with locations in Jasper and Banff, Alberta and in Whistler, British Columbia at www.mountaingalleries.com.

In addition, she is pleased be represented by Gallery Odin on Silver Star Mountain near Vernon, British Columbia at www.galleryodin.com.