2024 | CONNOR ROTHE
YOU MADE IT FEEL SO REAL (PLEASE KEEP YOUR PROMISE)
TORONTO
Jul 6 - Aug 17, 2024

Blouin Division is pleased to present Connor Rothe, You Made it Feel so Real (please keep your promise) in the project space.

Simulation is commonly characterized by a divide: between perceiver/perceived, exterior/interior, meta/physical, un/real; it is deeply rooted in disconnection. Seen in the division of the title, You Made It Seem so Real / (please keep your promise), this project pleads for two halves to become whole again, for reality to feel familiar again, or, if nothing else, to find solace in the dissociator’s disembodied perception.

Imitating scenes of the real, paintings describe the static hum of telephone wires, the rays of the sun, and the blowing of reeds of grass. Treading the line between dream, illusion, and hallucination, exterior scenes are recounted as sites of internal detachment.

Moments of realization/recollection flicker in and out of focus in lapses of light, memory, deja vu, and the digital. Entirely painted in acrylic with an airbrush, there is no physical connection between the artist and the canvas/ground. The lack of physicality, both in the process and effect of airbrushing, relates to the project’s described simulation.


Connor Rothe (b. 2001, Waterloo) is a visual artist based in Toronto. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from OCAD University (2024). Rothe explores painting through his experience with derealization (a dissociative disorder that makes one feel mentally detached from their surroundings). His paintings are both photographic and blurry. In this, he attempts to straddle the line between real and unreal.