Guillaume Lachapelle

Mechanical balcony

2023

Guillaume Lachapelle’s work combines the real and the imaginary to create miniature environments and scenarios that showcase connections between humans and their everyday worlds. In Extrapolations, Lachapelle extracts seemingly mundane mechanical objects from a typical cityscape – such as radiators, fire hydrants, and balconies – and manipulates their appearance by creating 3D printed models that visually oscillate between the magical and the monstrous. In some of his sculptures, Lachapelle uses photogrammetry – a method that scans a series of two-dimensional photographs or images to create three-dimensional models. While photogrammetry typically enables real-life objects to be accurately reproduced, the artist challenges this paradigm by tampering with the machine’s process, both by accepting the machine’s glitches and by triggering them. When scanning images, the results may not always be what is anticipated, however, for Lachapelle it is about welcoming the unknown. In several examples, he encourages the program to read screenshots of images and extrapolates what should be there, filling in blank data with added images and various shapes. The resulting sculptures are symmetrical and geometric, appearing uncannily familiar like human vertebrae, yet unfamiliar in fantastical abstracted forms. The sculptures merge between two different worlds, bridging human and machine through unexpected adaptations to everyday things. Extrapolations balances between this duality, ultimately reflecting on the increasing dependency humans have on technology in our everyday world. For Lachapelle, this is especially pertinent in a world where technology is continuously developing. The sculptures highlight the dynamic and everchanging relationship between humans and technology, making us question this reliance on technology. In this exhibition, Lachapelle also introduces the inclusion of human characters back into his art practice. He places people in unnatural and impossible exchanges with machines and technology. For instance, while in past exhibitions, he has usually tried to conceal the electronic components that make moving pieces...

Guillaume Lachapelle’s artistic practice is shaped predominantly by sculpture, expressed in the form of installations and detailed miniature models. Lachapelle presents playful universes which combine objects of undetermined purpose; in this way, he opens the conventions of our reality to fresh disposition. The architecture of his models – which Lachapelle has recently begun to make with the help of the latest 3-D printing technology – shows motifs originating from the everyday, certainly, but seeming strange, alienating or even uncanny when combined as the artist chooses. A kind of transition between two worlds often appears in Lachapelle’s work – for example when the model of a library filled with books curves inwards and reveals a mysterious opening pointing into darkness – these are the artist’s references to spaces and occurrences which may be concealed below the surface of outward semblance. Guillaume Lachapelle has participated in several solo and group exhibitions including Manèges at Circa – Centre d’Exposition Art Contemporain (Montreal) in 2006; Quebec Gold at the Ancien Collège des Jésuites (Rheims, France) in 2008 and in Abracadabra (Edward Day...

Guillaume Lachapelle’s work combines the real and the imaginary to create miniature environments and scenarios that showcase connections between humans and their everyday worlds. In ...

Guillaume Lachapelle’s work combines the real and the imaginary to create miniature environments and scenarios that showcase connections between humans and their everyday worlds. In Extrapolations, Lachapelle extracts seemingly mundane mechanical objects from a typical cityscape – such as radiators, fire hydrants, and balconies – and manipulates their appearance by creating 3D printed models that visually oscillate between the magical and the monstrous. In some of his sculptures, Lachapelle uses photogrammetry – a method that scans a series of two-dimensional photographs or images to create three-dimensional models. While photogrammetry typically enables real-life objects to be accurately reproduced, the artist challenges this paradigm by tampering with the machine’s process, both by accepting the machine’s glitches and by triggering them. When scanning images, the results may not always be what is anticipated, however, for Lachapelle it is about welcoming the unknown. In several examples, he encourages the program to read screenshots of images and extrapolates what should be there, filling in blank data with added images and various shapes. The resulting sculptures are symmetrical and geometric, appearing uncannily familiar like human vertebrae, yet unfamiliar in fantastical abstracted forms. The sculptures merge between two different worlds, bridging human and machine through unexpected adaptations to everyday things. Extrapolations balances between this duality, ultimately reflecting on the increasing dependency humans have on technology in our everyday world. For Lachapelle, this is especially pertinent in a world where technology is continuously developing. The sculptures highlight the dynamic and everchanging relationship between humans and technology, making us question this reliance on technology. In this exhibition, Lachapelle also introduces the inclusion of human characters back into his art practice. He places people in unnatural and impossible exchanges with machines and technology. For instance, while in past exhibitions, he has usually tried to conceal the electronic components that make moving pieces...

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Forged steel