Guillaume La Brie
ARTIST STATEMENT
Guillaume La Brie’s artistic practice is primarily motivated by derived gestures from sculpture, but it goes beyond the boundaries object to address issues associated with work perception and presentation in visual arts. The context exhibition’s effect on the interpretation of what is exhibited is therefore paramount in his approach to creation. This close link between the object and the environment becomes a plastic element that he manipulates in the same way that wood or stone would be transformed in a traditional sculptural work. In a process that develops like a chain reaction, Guillaume La Brie always begins by imagining an anomaly in the relationship that some objects, common or artistic, have with where they are, the temporality of their presentation, the volume they define, the person who looks at them or the location they occupy. Then, he adapts reality to imaginary situations he invents and the restructuring’s poetry obtained as well as the symbolism of the things positioning become the main discursive reference of his work.
Born in Saint-Hyacinthe in 1978, Guillaume La Brie lives and works in Montreal. In 2001, he obtained a bachelor’s degree in visual arts from UQÀM before completed a master’s degree at the same institution in 2007. Often granted by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Canada Council for the Arts, his work in space’s symbolism has been exhibited in several artist-run centers and museums from 2001 to the present such at Circa art actuel, Galerie B-312, Centre Clark, Darling Foundry, Langage Plus, Musée régional de Rimouski, Axenéo7 and Dare-Dare. As an independent artist or as a member of the collective Pique-Nique, of which he is a founding member, he has also developed several in situ art projects that fit into the urban network. Since 2011, this public art practice has become more concrete within the policy of integrating the arts into architecture, for which he has produced about fifteen pieces. At an international level, Guillaume La Brie has participated in art exhibitions and residencies such as Les Perles residency at Barrels (France), Los palabras y los cosas exhibition in Barcelona (Spain) and Teleportation project in Tokyo (Japan) in collaboration with Galerie B-312.