LIFELINES - Doris La Frenais                                                at ARCANE Space - May 30 2026

Born in Poland at the close of World War II, Doris La Frenais’ earliest days were shaped by displacement, rejection, and survival. Journeying on foot through postwar Europe, she and her mother eventually reached Germany before her mother remarried an American G.I., and the family relocated to the United States. What followed was a nomadic childhood, moving between military barracks across American landscapes — “parade grounds, desert coyotes, distant train whistles — and the persistent sense of being an outsider.” Branded and bullied as a child, she grew up carrying the weight of that early alienation, which would later surface in struggles with depression and addiction before ultimately finding its way into her work.

La Frenais’ paintings draw from this foundational strangeness: a childhood she has described as akin to a Grimm’s fairytale — an unsettling mixture of the tragic and the absurd, the surreal and the grotesque. It is from that charged, complicated interior terrain that her art emerges. Art had always been a haven for La Frenais, but she began making work seriously after being encouraged by Salvador Dalí’s empresario in the early 1970’s while living in Paris.  After relocating to California, she met the pioneering Norwegian artist, Jan Valentin Sæther who taught her to make her own paints from pigments and oils. At the same time, she pursued a diploma in audio engineering in addition to studying fashion design and teaching Kundalini yoga. All the while, painting remained a constant. Whenever she found the space, she painted — continuing her practice across travels in Europe and India, even amid the disruptions of addiction.

Just as pain and addiction marked her life, so too did art — as refuge, discipline, and a means of returning to clarity. Her paintings became a register of her internal states, forming an eclectic body of work that moves between unease and distress, and moments of stillness and order. At times, the work bears the imprint of substance use: frenetic, manic brushstrokes and anguished portraits reflecting a life lived in tension — a compulsive, often hidden existence sustained alongside a seemingly conventional family life. In contrast are the more subdued soporific portraits and still lifes, as well as works that reflect a hard-won sense of harmony shaped through meditation, yoga, and a sustained spiritual practice.

“I never found peace or harmony on a therapist’s couch, or in a rehab facility, clinic, or with the mystics, shamans, and charlatans who promised emancipation. I found it in quiet rooms filled with canvases and brushes and paints. Those rooms were my emotional refuge and painting my salvation.”

Over time, La Frenais’ work found its way into private collections across the United States and internationally, including those of prominent figures within the world of rock and roll. LIFELINES marks the first public exhibition of her work.