Dr. David LeRue

Biography

David LeRue (BFA, MFA, PhD) is an artist, teacher, and researcher working between research-creation, qualitative research, and community-engaged pedagogical practices. His work theorizes the contradictions of community through developing and using inductive methods of participatory arts-based research informed by oral history to understand how places are experienced and interpreted on the grassroots level. Through using dialectical philosophies, he has come to understand community and places as inherently contradictory, subject to ongoing social and physical re-imaginings.

David has taught studio, writing, and pre-service teachers at Concordia in various capacities since 2017, and studio arts to kids, teens, and adults in community settings in Montreal and Nova Scotia since 2015. His teaching style adopts principles of critical pedagogy and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to foster inclusive learning environments that prioritize inductive discovery and self-advocacy. As an artist, he has shown at numerous galleries and artist-run centres across Canada. His work focuses on 2D landscape painting practices, applying the principles and approaches to landscape painting to the built environment of the city, with his most recent solo exhibition Et pourtant, ça bouge examining architectures that no longer serve their initial functions that are nevertheless preserved for their deeper symbolic meanings. Presently, he makes paintings of dogs and plein-air landscape paintings in the city. He is being represented by Atelier-galerie LaChapelle in Bromont, Québec. 

Affiliations

Concordia University

Undergraduate:
PAINT 200: Introduction to Painting
ARTE 320: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Art and Teaching
ARTE 330: Introduction to Community Education

Graduate: 
ARTE 606: Art and Spatial Production (Studio Special Topics) 

Ongoing Research Projects

Book Chapters

LeRue, D. & Jalil, R. (2024). How to paint a dog: A conversation on painting and theory. In Disruption and Convergence. 

Jalil, R. & LeRue, D. (2024). What does it mean to paint in the 2020’s? A practice-led framework for painters. In Disruption and Convergence. 

LeRue, D. & Jalil, R. (2024). Painters and their places: Toward a dialectical understanding of personal and community painting practices. In Disruption and Convergence. 

Atkinson, A, Long, N. & LeRue, D. (2023). “Teaching is about human relationships”: Teachers navigating the pandemic through the metaphor of the penrose tile. In Art Education: A Global Affair. 

LeRue, D., Wells, C., Urquhart, K., Shanahan, B., Kim, J. (2023). Community-based education in a pandemic world: Maintaining and building an art-home in a time of isolation. In Art Education: A Global Affair. 

Journal Articles

LeRue, D. (2023). Making and meaning: A proposition for community-based research-creation. LEARNing Landscapes, 16(1).

LeRue, D. (2023). Landscaping the city: Place-based online learning in the time of pandemic. Canadian Art Teacher.

Book and Media Reviews

LeRue, D. (2024). What does a housing crisis sound like? A review of reverberations d’une crise. Canadian Art Teacher.

LeRue, D. (2023). A review of researching the teaching of drawing. International Journal of Education Through Art.

Conference Proceedings

Shanahan, B., LeRue, D., Kim, J.K, & Long, N. (2024). The welcomed problem: Introducing the STAC problem model for teachers. Applying Education in a Complex World, Toronto, Ontario. 

Vaughan, K., LeRue, D., & LeGallais, J. (2023). Learning With the St. Lawrence. Quebec Universities Colloquium Conference Papers.

LeRue, D. (In-Press). Epistemology of Digital Painting. Manuscript publication of the 1^st Annual Conference on the Digital Arts, Sevilla, Spain.

LeRue, D. (2023). Using the City for Art Education: Nine Sequential Lesson Ideas and Four Projects from Landscaping the City. ACE Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia.

Select Individual Conference Presentations

LeRue, D. (June 2024). Developing Community-Engaged Research-Creation in Montreal’s Sud Ouest. CSSE 2024, Montreal, Quebec.

LeRue, D. (April 2024). Landscape as Method and Model. NAEA24, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Selected as Concordia’s nominee to the Marilyn Zurmuehlen Working Papers in Art Education.

LeRue, D. (April 2024). Hue and value: An experimental method to demonstrate the difference. NAEA24, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States.

LeRue, D. (2023, July). Collaborative research in the community classroom. 18^th Annual Arts in Society Conference, Krakow, Poland.

LeRue, D. (2023, March 29). Community is Contradiction in Art and Life, Living, Teaching, Learning and Researching as an Anglophone in a Francophone Anarchist Building Project. How and Where Does Your Research Live? Practice and Emerging Possibilities Research NAEA Preconvention, Online.

LeRue, D. (2022, November 30). Epistemology of digital painting. 1^st Annual Conference on the Digital Arts, Sevilla, Spain. 

LeRue, D. (2022, October). Fieldwork with an Easel and Palette: Landscape Painting as Research-Creation. CSEA Emergence, Ottawa, Ontario.

Select Group Conference Presentations

Kim, J., Long, N., LeRue, D., Shanahan, B., Mossalim, J. (June, 2024). A Teacher Collective’s Positioning that Mistakes Matter in the Art Classroom. CSEA 2024, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Vaughan, K., LeRue, D., Le Gallais, J., Kar, S. (April 2024). Learning with the St. Lawrence: Interdisciplinary research and creation for community education, professional development, and sustainability. NAEA24, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States.

Shanahan, B. Long, N., & LeRue, D. (2023, July). About the elephant in the room. 18th Annual Arts in Society Conference, Krakow, Poland.

LeRue, D., Shanahan, B., & Kim, J.K. (2023, April). The welcomed problem: Centering the ends to develop the means in art education. AMPS: Applying Education in a Complex World. Sheridan University, Toronto, Ontario.

Vaughan, K., LeGallais, J., LeRue, D., & Stanton, V. (2022, October). A profile of “learning with the St. Lawrence” in progress: A constellation of emerging projects. CSEA Emergence, Ottawa, Ontario.