Lucas Simões
2021 | LUCAS SIMÕES
MONTREAL
June 15 - Aug 14
Lucas Simões, DESENHO #5, 2019, Steel and paper, 24” x 21”
June 15 - Aug 14, 2021
Lucas Simões’s sculptural work combines sturdy materials like steel and concrete with more delicate ones, such as paper and copper. The artist’s thoughtful juxtapositions of materials emphasize the tension between built form and unstable matter to achieve a gentle balance via the elusive force of gravity. In this way, his work draws attention to the invisible phenomena that affect the material world. Trained as an architect, Simões’s practice as an artist is driven by the impetus to ‘make strange.’ His artistic practice is grounded in the aesthetic heritage of the Russian avant-garde, particularly that of the Soviet Formalist writer Viktor Shklovsky who is best known for developing the literary concept of defamiliarization or ‘estrangement’. For Shklovsky, art acted as a tool that allowed artists to turn something ubiquitous into something peculiar that could conjure new perspectives on the part of the beholder.