Artist Project
Ongoing Monday July 25 – Sunday July 31
Alley between Downtown Digital & Jean Coutu, 87 Main Street
“Some of the places where I grew up were built, modified and improved through mutations, inertia and contradictions. The materials and technical means used are almost all invented and are determined by the immediate environment, at the heart of which is social instability and a generalized economy.
In these improvised suburbs, each construction has been designed using found materials in surrounding areas and chosen using a system that is not based on aesthetics or personal taste. Solutions are created from these situations and concrete needs such as creating a new path, modifying an opening, improving, rearranging or getting rid of any given space. Given the fact that these spaces are erected without any sort of budget or regard for architecture, some spaces have a chaotic, uninhabited, almost unusable air about them, but do not stop transforming to the random beat of necessity.
The ‘Passage’ installation reveals an experimental vitality where the accidental and ingeniousness take direct action, using materials available within arm’s reach and being likely and available to be used. Here, an object that is found, tinkered with and patched up is not an accessory. The “true” object has its own existence, and because of this, it serves. It is an uncontested means of interaction with the observer to the point of partnering with the observer – becoming an equal present at the site.
Through ‘Passage’ I am experimenting with many different ways of mixing materials to create organically an installation. Beginning with a profusion of randomly chosen objects, I create unexpected and unlikely combinations from reused items, using instability as an artistic means. Through this process, even in a space that would be described as being “poor”, I take objects and make them look like other “things”, like an illusionist.
The entire project evokes a collector’s aesthetic and the idea that something can be created out of nothing. The found objects are combined and modified to become sculptural and create a new and unified piece. Perhaps because mutations are also constructs unto themselves, with ‘Passage’, I have attempted to unite fragments of my own identity, which are always in flux, via an approach through time and space in which I live and work, while simultaneously being an immigrant and a protagonist. “
– José Luis Torres
José Luis Torres was born in Argentina and has a Bachelor’s Degree in Visual Arts, a Master’s Degree in Sculpture and a degree in Architecture. Torres has been living and working in Quebec since 2003. His work has been showcased in many solo, group and public interventions in both Canada and abroad and he has participated in various artist residencies in Canada, Argentina, the United States, Mexico and Europe. Upcoming 2016 exhibitions include the Koffler Centre of the Arts in Toronto and the Museum London in Ontario.