One may travel far away, but the beckoning of home and how it affects us is always close at hand. For visual artist Claude Latour, this couldn’t be more true. Growing up in Ottawa, Latour reflects on how living in various blue collar neighbourhoods provided opportunities to exercise his imagination in escaping the social challenges he faced. As I speak with him about his work at a café, local to his old stomping grounds of Eastview, now Vanier, he points out how buildings on Beechwood Avenue contain memories and meaning for him, connecting him back to his foundational years in this city. His own household was informed by his father’s French Canadian background and his mother’s Algonquin ancestry. His matrilineal connection to the Algonquin of Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation (formerly River Desert), his mother’s community on the Québec side threads itself through his art.

Read full article on Ottawa Life Magazine.