Alicia LaChance found some discarded canvases, and the inspiration flowed.

As a child, Alicia LaChance’s eyes took in old billboards, vestiges of farm ads on brick walls along Route 66 and the collected Americana at her grandmother’s house.

Although rooted in a nostalgic past, her art creates its own new language.

“I try to create something modern, but at the same time imbued with nostalgia,” said LaChance, who is based in St. Louis, Mo. “I hope some color choices have the same effect for the viewer, maybe an unspoken understanding.”

LaChance’s works of fresco and thinned oil paints are on exhibit at Gallery Fraga in Winslow through April 1.

In her works, squares and rectangles of turquoise, orange, night blue or green each contain silhouetted shapes under an aged patina. Individually, each block seems at odds with its neighbor, but somehow as a whole they fit like lines in a Bach duet.

LaChance works on canvas with plaster bound by an acrylic medium, applying multiple layers of thinned oil paint.

“It starts to vibrate with color and create a luminosity and subtle liveliness,” she said.

LaChance started out in apparel design, which included study at Seattle Central Community College and the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City.

She eventually returned, with her three young children, to her roots in St. Louis to be closer to family. Soon after, she happened onto some 80 blank canvases and other art supplies that were being thrown away during the remodeling of an art school.

She took up the canvas, literally, and started to work. She found success early enough to be able to stay at home with her children and support her family.

Today, her works hang in the offices of Kate Spade and The Gap.

Her frescos started out with the traditional chalky surface, but evolved to a glossy hard surface, like that of Chinese and Russian lacquer boxes she likes.

Her studies in fashion design seasoned her sense of balance in composition and design.

Her immersion in Japanese prints by masters such as Utamaro influence her use of color.

“One thing I get from Japanese prints is their perfect color balance,” she said. “If you look at the dialogue of the clothes, the rain or tree branches, and if you place your hand over an area of a print, there are these beautiful abstract dialogues going on in there.”

LaChance uses found objects to apply paints or scrape away at the still-wet medium.

She began compartamentalizing blocks in her work à la Mondrian about four years ago when she made eight 6-by-6-foot murals on wood and decided to saw them into pieces and reassemble them.

“I like the idea of this language coming about, like scrapbooks, old fabrics or antiquities,” LaChance said.

Scraps of memories and images from the Americana and antiques LaChance saw in her grandmother’s home – where 11 children were raised in 22 rooms – appear in the images she chooses. Her silhouetted nature scenes often are an amalgamation of different real-life plants.

Being surrounded by artists in her family – her brother, mother and grandmother – keeps LaChance motivated.

“When I come across other paintings I love, it’s like oxygen,” she said. “There’s never a moment when I don’t think about going back to the canvas.”

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The naturalist

“Modern Nature,” an exhibit of fresco and oil on canvas by Alicia LaChance will be at Gallery Fraga, 166 Winslow Way E., through April 1. Hours are noon to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday. For more information, call 842-1150 or visit www.galleryfraga.com.