Washington - Art
to
473
142
227
280
537
402
Overall Width
to
Overall Height
to
1
32
794
761
10
87
43
49
124
161
125
80
39
17
1
560
298
123
85
63
22
20
7
1
1
1
1
1,001
321
202
516
388
365
286
219
218
187
126
108
89
85
54
53
52
44
42
41
39
34
32
598
515
515
461
312
378
60
55
50
21
63
32
232,756
151,389
Item Ships From: Washington
Mitosis 1 Moss Green & Black Large Abstract Nature Bio Exploration Acrylic Print
By Costas Picadas
Located in Brooklyn, NY
*Scientists at Mount Sinai are working to identify and block COVID-19 while many are still at risk from the disease. We (the artist and gallery) will be donating 30% of all income fr...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Washington - Art
Materials
Color
Expansion 1, Red & Green, Giant Love of Life Bio Exploration Acrylic Print
By Costas Picadas
Located in Brooklyn, NY
*Scientists at Mount Sinai are working to identify and block COVID-19 while many are still at risk from the disease. We (the artist and gallery) will be donating 30% of all income from this work to Mount Sinai to support their efforts saving lives…
Picadas creates photographs and video installations of places, situations and architecture that not only reveal their inner essence but also hint at dark unknown recesses. By partially stripping away the surface features of an image, the artist unearths visions that give rise to both a secret countenance and a psychic inner landscape. The artist explains, “In my photographs I examine and reveal the ways in which one can freeze both space and time by re-contextualizing different parts of reality and recombining them in new ways. The result is that both objects, and even situations, can be transformed into a kind of sculpture, providing us access to new knowledge about the nature of our reality.” The current works on view include photographs from Costas Picadas...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Washington - Art
Materials
Color
Expansion 2 Blue & Orange Extra Large Love of Life Bio Exploration Acrylic Print
By Costas Picadas
Located in Brooklyn, NY
*Scientists at Mount Sinai are working to identify and block COVID-19 while many are still at risk from the disease. We (the artist and gallery) will be donating 30% of all income from this work to Mount Sinai to support their efforts saving lives…
Picadas creates photographs and video installations of places, situations and architecture that not only reveal their inner essence but also hint at dark unknown recesses. By partially stripping away the surface features of an image, the artist unearths visions that give rise to both a secret countenance and a psychic inner landscape. The artist explains, “In my photographs I examine and reveal the ways in which one can freeze both space and time by re-contextualizing different parts of reality and recombining them in new ways. The result is that both objects, and even situations, can be transformed into a kind of sculpture, providing us access to new knowledge about the nature of our reality.” The current works on view include photographs from Costas Picadas...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Washington - Art
Materials
Color
Expansion 2, Blue & Orange, Large Love of Life Bio Exploration Acrylic Print
By Costas Picadas
Located in Brooklyn, NY
*Scientists at Mount Sinai are working to identify and block COVID-19 while many are still at risk from the disease. We (the artist and gallery) will be donating 30% of all income fr...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Washington - Art
Materials
Color
Expansion 1, Red & Green, Extra Large Love of Life Bio Exploration Acrylic Print
By Costas Picadas
Located in Brooklyn, NY
*Scientists at Mount Sinai are working to identify and block COVID-19 while many are still at risk from the disease. We (the artist and gallery) will be donating 30% of all income fr...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Washington - Art
Materials
Color
Expansion 1, Red & Green, Large Love of Life Bio Exploration Acrylic Print
By Costas Picadas
Located in Brooklyn, NY
*Scientists at Mount Sinai are working to identify and block COVID-19 while many are still at risk from the disease. We (the artist and gallery) will be donating 30% of all income fr...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Washington - Art
Materials
Color
In Case of Need, Original Signed Contemporary Surrealist Painting on Wood Panel
By Megan Frazer
Located in Boston, MA
In Case of Need, Original Contemporary Surrealist Painting, 2014
18" x 11.25" x 1.625" (HxWxD) Gouache on Wood Panel
Hand-signed. by the artist.
A conceptual surrealist painting in a muted color scheme, this work makes the viewer think about the juxtaposition of subject matter present in attempt to piece together a logical narrative that appears to be out of reach. Two hands poke out from beneath an undulating sandy landscape. One rests upon the ground's surface, the other sticks straight up, delicately holding a baby bottle...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Surrealist Washington - Art
Materials
Gouache, Wood Panel
Bowie circa 1971
By Megan Frazer
Located in Boston, MA
Artist Commentary:
When we lost the iconic David Bowie this past year I was reminded of how much his music and life meant to me, especially as a young adult. Upon experimentation wi...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Expressionist Washington - Art
Materials
Ink
Chestnuts
By Megan Frazer
Located in Boston, MA
Artist Commentary:
I collected horse chestnuts on my frequent walks with Ocho the dog because I love the shapes, color and texture of these large seeds. I cleaned, sealed and painte...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Washington - Art
Materials
Organic Material, Acrylic, Board
Dark Fall
By Megan Frazer
Located in Boston, MA
Artist Commentary:
Bare branches carve through and explode against the gradient sky behind while complimentary colors accentuate the vibrancy of the natu...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Washington - Art
Materials
Canvas, India Ink, Acrylic
Nucleus 2
By Paul-Émile Rioux
Located in Miami, FL
Medium: Archival pigment print under museum acrylic glass.
Dimensions: 48 x 48 in.
Depth: 1/4 in.
Signed by the artist.
Edition of 5.
Paul-Émile Rioux is a Montreal-based artist a...
Category
2010s Contemporary Washington - Art
Materials
Plexiglass, Archival Pigment
Clouds 4
By Paul-Émile Rioux
Located in Miami, FL
Archival photo print under acrylic glass.
Dimensions: 48 x 48 in.
Depth: 1/4 in.
RIOUX started the Cloud project in 2022.
Paul-Emile Rioux’s series Cloud, like his other work, is a ...
Category
2010s Contemporary Washington - Art
Materials
Plexiglass, Archival Pigment
Clouds 18
By Paul-Émile Rioux
Located in Miami, FL
Archival photo print under acrylic glass.
Dimensions: 48 x 48 in.
Depth: 1/4 in.
Artist and photographer Paul-Émile Rioux lives in Montréal, Canada.
His lifelong interest in cutti...
Category
2010s Contemporary Washington - Art
Materials
Plexiglass, Archival Pigment
Clouds 16
By Paul-Émile Rioux
Located in Miami, FL
Archival photo print under acrylic glass.
Dimensions: 48 x 48 in.
Depth: 1/4 in.
Artist and photographer Paul-Émile Rioux lives in Montréal, Canada.
His lifelong interest in cutti...
Category
2010s Contemporary Washington - Art
Materials
Plexiglass, Archival Pigment
Clouds 17
By Paul-Émile Rioux
Located in Miami, FL
Archival photo print under acrylic glass.
Dimensions: 48 x 48 in.
Depth: 1/4 in.
Artist and photographer Paul-Émile Rioux lives in Montréal, Canada.
His lifelong interest in cutti...
Category
2010s Contemporary Washington - Art
Materials
Plexiglass, Archival Pigment
Clouds 15
By Paul-Émile Rioux
Located in Miami, FL
Archival photo print under acrylic glass.
Dimensions: 48 x 48 in.
Depth: 1/4 in.
Artist and photographer Paul-Émile Rioux lives in Montréal, Canada.
His lifelong interest in cutti...
Category
2010s Contemporary Washington - Art
Materials
Plexiglass, Archival Pigment
Clouds 13
By Paul-Émile Rioux
Located in Miami, FL
Archival photo print under acrylic glass.
Dimensions: 48 x 48 in.
Depth: 1/4 in.
Artist and photographer Paul-Émile Rioux lives in Montréal, Canada.
His lifelong interest in cutti...
Category
2010s Contemporary Washington - Art
Materials
Plexiglass, Archival Pigment
Clouds 11
By Paul-Émile Rioux
Located in Miami, FL
Archival photo print under acrylic glass.
Dimensions: 48 x 48 in.
Depth: 1/4 in.
Artist and photographer Paul-Émile Rioux lives in Montréal, Canada.
His lifelong interest in cutting-edge media technology as well as his expertise in photography cast him as pioneer in digital art and allow him to develop virtual matrix from which he extracts his images.
In his works he explores a universe that lies at the crossroad of abstraction and the figurative, inviting the viewer to determine if what he sees is a reflection of reality or imagination.
Through is truly unique approach RIOUX is one of the most innovative artists in digital creations and one of the few creative minds able to blend with such keenness aesthetics research and critical distance.
Whether they translate into a Dantesque urbanity or the infinite horizon of a turquoise ocean, the urban territory reflected by his creations offers a dystopian view of the world, challenging our attitude towards the environment and the future.
From the onset, RIOUX has no intention of matching IRL expectations of what digital art 'should' look like, but strives to play with our notions of what's real, what's not, how we remember, and how we infer meaning into imaginary visual constructs.
---
RIOUX started the Cloud project in 2022.
Paul-Emile Rioux’s series Cloud, like his other work, is a kind of aesthetic thought experiment. Each square image is bisected symmetrically, or nearly symmetrically, by a tidy horizon. The upper half display forms that appear as clouds, the bottom as an underwater seascape, yet at the same time mimics the cloudlike formations of above.
Formally these works reference hard-edged abstraction, minimalism and abstract expressionism, though juxtaposed with a sort of Instagram lifestyle sensibility. When shown as a gridded series, they recall the Instagram account @insta_repeat which curates gridded typologies of nearly identical influencer photos – for instance sunsets on a beach, or campfires with hiking boot clad feet visible in the foreground, transforming images, which individually are meant to signify the good life, into symbols of stifling homogeneity, cynically trying to capitalize on mass-produced sensations.
Unlike past movements in abstract or minimal art, however, Rioux is not striving to create self-contained objects, but windows into deeper currents that churn in the dark spaces where culture, technology and the subconscious flow together. Rioux’s digital works are not specifically images, but notes, ways of thinking. They connect to a larger discourse.
With Clouds, Rioux thinks aloud about what is hidden and what is revealed in our relationships to technology and nature. It is a meditation on “the cloud,” which, like real clouds, seem immaterial, but in fact are physical and have a material impact on the world. Rioux considers the juxtaposition between weight and weightlessness – the apparent weightlessness of virtual reality, against the mass, the inescapability of the material world. Technology promises a world of lightness, connectivity and the bounty of limitless growth, or if it cannot quite muster that illusion, at least the offer of escape into a simulated universe of carnivalesque distraction shepherding us away from the environmental catastrophe our economic system inflicts on the earth. In this series Rioux asks us to reflect on what the clouds hide.
There are 18 pieces in the Cloud collection.
Each archival pigment print is produced under the supervision of the artist.
The print is mounted under a single piece of 1/4"/ 6 mm gallery...
Category
2010s Contemporary Washington - Art
Materials
Plexiglass, Archival Pigment
Clouds 2
By Paul-Émile Rioux
Located in Miami, FL
Archival photo print under acrylic glass.
Dimensions: 48 x 48 in.
Depth: 1/4 in.
Artist and photographer Paul-Émile Rioux lives in Montréal, Canada.
His lifelong interest in cutting-edge media technology as well as his expertise in photography cast him as pioneer in digital art and allow him to develop virtual matrix from which he extracts his images.
In his works he explores a universe that lies at the crossroad of abstraction and the figurative, inviting the viewer to determine if what he sees is a reflection of reality or imagination.
Through is truly unique approach RIOUX is one of the most innovative artists in digital creations and one of the few creative minds able to blend with such keenness aesthetics research and critical distance.
Whether they translate into a Dantesque urbanity or the infinite horizon of a turquoise ocean, the urban territory reflected by his creations offers a dystopian view of the world, challenging our attitude towards the environment and the future.
From the onset, RIOUX has no intention of matching IRL expectations of what digital art 'should' look like, but strives to play with our notions of what's real, what's not, how we remember, and how we infer meaning into imaginary visual constructs.
---
RIOUX started the Cloud project in 2022.
Paul-Emile Rioux’s series Cloud, like his other work, is a kind of aesthetic thought experiment. Each square image is bisected symmetrically, or nearly symmetrically, by a tidy horizon. The upper half display forms that appear as clouds, the bottom as an underwater seascape, yet at the same time mimics the cloudlike formations of above.
Formally these works reference hard-edged abstraction, minimalism and abstract expressionism, though juxtaposed with a sort of Instagram lifestyle sensibility. When shown as a gridded series, they recall the Instagram account @insta_repeat which curates gridded typologies of nearly identical influencer photos – for instance sunsets on a beach, or campfires with hiking boot clad feet visible in the foreground, transforming images, which individually are meant to signify the good life, into symbols of stifling homogeneity, cynically trying to capitalize on mass-produced sensations.
Unlike past movements in abstract or minimal art, however, Rioux is not striving to create self-contained objects, but windows into deeper currents that churn in the dark spaces where culture, technology and the subconscious flow together. Rioux’s digital works are not specifically images, but notes, ways of thinking. They connect to a larger discourse.
With Clouds, Rioux thinks aloud about what is hidden and what is revealed in our relationships to technology and nature. It is a meditation on “the cloud,” which, like real clouds, seem immaterial, but in fact are physical and have a material impact on the world. Rioux considers the juxtaposition between weight and weightlessness – the apparent weightlessness of virtual reality, against the mass, the inescapability of the material world. Technology promises a world of lightness, connectivity and the bounty of limitless growth, or if it cannot quite muster that illusion, at least the offer of escape into a simulated universe of carnivalesque distraction shepherding us away from the environmental catastrophe our economic system inflicts on the earth. In this series Rioux asks us to reflect on what the clouds hide.
There are 18 pieces in the Cloud collection.
Each archival pigment print is produced under the supervision of the artist.
The print is mounted under a single piece of 1/4"/ 6 mm gallery...
Category
2010s Contemporary Washington - Art
Materials
Plexiglass, Archival Pigment
Clouds 3
By Paul-Émile Rioux
Located in Miami, FL
Archival photo print under acrylic glass.
Dimensions: 48 x 48 in.
Depth: 1/4 in.
Artist and photographer Paul-Émile Rioux lives in Montréal, Canada.
His lifelong interest in cutting-edge media technology as well as his expertise in photography cast him as pioneer in digital art and allow him to develop virtual matrix from which he extracts his images.
In his works he explores a universe that lies at the crossroad of abstraction and the figurative, inviting the viewer to determine if what he sees is a reflection of reality or imagination.
Through is truly unique approach RIOUX is one of the most innovative artists in digital creations and one of the few creative minds able to blend with such keenness aesthetics research and critical distance.
Whether they translate into a Dantesque urbanity or the infinite horizon of a turquoise ocean, the urban territory reflected by his creations offers a dystopian view of the world, challenging our attitude towards the environment and the future.
From the onset, RIOUX has no intention of matching IRL expectations of what digital art 'should' look like, but strives to play with our notions of what's real, what's not, how we remember, and how we infer meaning into imaginary visual constructs.
---
RIOUX started the Cloud project in 2022.
Paul-Emile Rioux’s series Cloud, like his other work, is a kind of aesthetic thought experiment. Each square image is bisected symmetrically, or nearly symmetrically, by a tidy horizon. The upper half display forms that appear as clouds, the bottom as an underwater seascape, yet at the same time mimics the cloudlike formations of above.
Formally these works reference hard-edged abstraction, minimalism and abstract expressionism, though juxtaposed with a sort of Instagram lifestyle sensibility. When shown as a gridded series, they recall the Instagram account @insta_repeat which curates gridded typologies of nearly identical influencer photos – for instance sunsets on a beach, or campfires with hiking boot clad feet visible in the foreground, transforming images, which individually are meant to signify the good life, into symbols of stifling homogeneity, cynically trying to capitalize on mass-produced sensations.
Unlike past movements in abstract or minimal art, however, Rioux is not striving to create self-contained objects, but windows into deeper currents that churn in the dark spaces where culture, technology and the subconscious flow together. Rioux’s digital works are not specifically images, but notes, ways of thinking. They connect to a larger discourse.
With Clouds, Rioux thinks aloud about what is hidden and what is revealed in our relationships to technology and nature. It is a meditation on “the cloud,” which, like real clouds, seem immaterial, but in fact are physical and have a material impact on the world. Rioux considers the juxtaposition between weight and weightlessness – the apparent weightlessness of virtual reality, against the mass, the inescapability of the material world. Technology promises a world of lightness, connectivity and the bounty of limitless growth, or if it cannot quite muster that illusion, at least the offer of escape into a simulated universe of carnivalesque distraction shepherding us away from the environmental catastrophe our economic system inflicts on the earth. In this series Rioux asks us to reflect on what the clouds hide.
There are 18 pieces in the Cloud collection.
Each archival pigment print is produced under the supervision of the artist.
The print is mounted under a single piece of 1/4"/ 6 mm gallery...
Category
2010s Contemporary Washington - Art
Materials
Plexiglass, Archival Pigment
Clouds 7
By Paul-Émile Rioux
Located in Miami, FL
Archival photo print under acrylic glass.
Dimensions: 48 x 48 in.
Depth: 1/4 in.
Artist and photographer Paul-Émile Rioux lives in Montréal, Canada.
His lifelong interest in cutti...
Category
2010s Contemporary Washington - Art
Materials
Plexiglass, Archival Pigment
Renaissance - Revival 16
By Paul-Émile Rioux
Located in Miami, FL
Archival photo print under acrylic glass.
Dimensions: 48 x 48 in.
Depth: 1/4 in.
Artist and photographer Paul-Émile Rioux lives in Montréal, Canada.
His lifelong interest in cutting-edge media technology as well as his expertise in photography cast him as pioneer in digital art and allow him to develop virtual matrix from which he extracts his images.
In his works he explores a universe that lies at the crossroad of abstraction and the figurative, inviting the viewer to determine if what he sees is a reflection of reality or imagination.
Through is truly unique approach RIOUX is one of the most innovative artists in digital creations and one of the few creative minds able to blend with such keenness aesthetics research and critical distance.
Whether they translate into a Dantesque urbanity or the infinite horizon of a turquoise ocean, the urban territory reflected by his creations offers a dystopian view of the world, challenging our attitude towards the environment and the future.
From the onset, RIOUX has no intention of matching IRL expectations of what digital art 'should' look like, but strives to play with our notions of what's real, what's not, how we remember, and how we infer meaning into imaginary visual constructs.
---
RIOUX started the Renaissance project in 2016.
Renaissance further develops themes explored by RIOUX in his earlier series Turquoise Default. It is not merely a progression however, but also a contrast. This new series poses questions about hope, which is perhaps now more relevant than ever.
“Renaissance invokes in us a sense of uncertainty and a self-awareness of our limits, of an infinity made apparent by the horizon line, the vanishing point, the moment in any spatial or temporal projection beyond which we can no longer see, but from which, nonetheless, we know the universe carries on. At the same time it poses a choice to us: do we accept the openness of abstraction or do we insist on imposing a (false) certainty of representation in what we see in these images. Hope is a faith made possible by uncertainty and the unknown, by an understanding that history and the future are creative acts, works of art in which we all participate.” Neal Rockwell
There are 18 pieces in the RENAISSANCE collection.
Each archival pigment print is produced under the supervision of the artist.
The print is mounted under a single piece of 1/4"/ 6 mm gallery...
Category
2010s Contemporary Washington - Art
Materials
Plexiglass, Archival Pigment
Renaissance - Revival 14
By Paul-Émile Rioux
Located in Miami, FL
Archival photo print under acrylic glass.
Dimensions: 48 x 48 in.
Depth: 1/4 in.
Artist and photographer Paul-Émile Rioux lives in Montréal, Canada.
His lifelong interest in cutti...
Category
2010s Contemporary Washington - Art
Materials
Plexiglass, Archival Pigment
Renaissance - Revival 11
By Paul-Émile Rioux
Located in Miami, FL
Archival photo print under acrylic glass.
Dimensions: 48 x 48 in.
Depth: 1/4 in.
Artist and photographer Paul-Émile Rioux lives in Montréal, Canada.
His lifelong interest in cutti...
Category
2010s Contemporary Washington - Art
Materials
Plexiglass, Archival Pigment
Renaissance - Revival 9
By Paul-Émile Rioux
Located in Miami, FL
Archival photo print under acrylic glass.
Dimensions: 48 x 48 in.
Depth: 1/4 in.
Artist and photographer Paul-Émile Rioux lives in Montréal, Canada.
His lifelong interest in cutti...
Category
2010s Contemporary Washington - Art
Materials
Plexiglass, Archival Pigment
Clouds 9
By Paul-Émile Rioux
Located in Miami, FL
Archival photo print under acrylic glass.
Dimensions: 48 x 48 in.
Depth: 1/4 in.
Artist and photographer Paul-Émile Rioux lives in Montréal, Canada.
His lifelong interest in cutting-edge media technology as well as his expertise in photography cast him as pioneer in digital art and allow him to develop virtual matrix from which he extracts his images.
In his works he explores a universe that lies at the crossroad of abstraction and the figurative, inviting the viewer to determine if what he sees is a reflection of reality or imagination.
Through is truly unique approach RIOUX is one of the most innovative artists in digital creations and one of the few creative minds able to blend with such keenness aesthetics research and critical distance.
Whether they translate into a Dantesque urbanity or the infinite horizon of a turquoise ocean, the urban territory reflected by his creations offers a dystopian view of the world, challenging our attitude towards the environment and the future.
From the onset, RIOUX has no intention of matching IRL expectations of what digital art 'should' look like, but strives to play with our notions of what's real, what's not, how we remember, and how we infer meaning into imaginary visual constructs.
---
RIOUX started the Cloud project in 2022.
Paul-Emile Rioux’s series Cloud, like his other work, is a kind of aesthetic thought experiment. Each square image is bisected symmetrically, or nearly symmetrically, by a tidy horizon. The upper half display forms that appear as clouds, the bottom as an underwater seascape, yet at the same time mimics the cloudlike formations of above.
Formally these works reference hard-edged abstraction, minimalism and abstract expressionism, though juxtaposed with a sort of Instagram lifestyle sensibility. When shown as a gridded series, they recall the Instagram account @insta_repeat which curates gridded typologies of nearly identical influencer photos – for instance sunsets on a beach, or campfires with hiking boot clad feet visible in the foreground, transforming images, which individually are meant to signify the good life, into symbols of stifling homogeneity, cynically trying to capitalize on mass-produced sensations.
Unlike past movements in abstract or minimal art, however, Rioux is not striving to create self-contained objects, but windows into deeper currents that churn in the dark spaces where culture, technology and the subconscious flow together. Rioux’s digital works are not specifically images, but notes, ways of thinking. They connect to a larger discourse.
With Clouds, Rioux thinks aloud about what is hidden and what is revealed in our relationships to technology and nature. It is a meditation on “the cloud,” which, like real clouds, seem immaterial, but in fact are physical and have a material impact on the world. Rioux considers the juxtaposition between weight and weightlessness – the apparent weightlessness of virtual reality, against the mass, the inescapability of the material world. Technology promises a world of lightness, connectivity and the bounty of limitless growth, or if it cannot quite muster that illusion, at least the offer of escape into a simulated universe of carnivalesque distraction shepherding us away from the environmental catastrophe our economic system inflicts on the earth. In this series Rioux asks us to reflect on what the clouds hide.
There are 18 pieces in the Cloud collection.
Each archival pigment print is produced under the supervision of the artist.
The print is mounted under a single piece of 1/4"/ 6 mm gallery museum acrylic...
Category
2010s Contemporary Washington - Art
Materials
Plexiglass, Archival Pigment
Clouds 8
By Paul-Émile Rioux
Located in Miami, FL
Archival photo print under acrylic glass.
Dimensions: 48 x 48 in.
Depth: 1/4 in.
Artist and photographer Paul-Émile Rioux lives in Montréal, Canada.
His lifelong interest in cutting-edge media technology as well as his expertise in photography cast him as pioneer in digital art and allow him to develop virtual matrix from which he extracts his images.
In his works he explores a universe that lies at the crossroad of abstraction and the figurative, inviting the viewer to determine if what he sees is a reflection of reality or imagination.
Through is truly unique approach RIOUX is one of the most innovative artists in digital creations and one of the few creative minds able to blend with such keenness aesthetics research and critical distance.
Whether they translate into a Dantesque urbanity or the infinite horizon of a turquoise ocean, the urban territory reflected by his creations offers a dystopian view of the world, challenging our attitude towards the environment and the future.
From the onset, RIOUX has no intention of matching IRL expectations of what digital art 'should' look like, but strives to play with our notions of what's real, what's not, how we remember, and how we infer meaning into imaginary visual constructs.
---
RIOUX started the Cloud project in 2022.
Paul-Emile Rioux’s series Cloud, like his other work, is a kind of aesthetic thought experiment. Each square image is bisected symmetrically, or nearly symmetrically, by a tidy horizon. The upper half display forms that appear as clouds, the bottom as an underwater seascape, yet at the same time mimics the cloudlike formations of above.
Formally these works reference hard-edged abstraction, minimalism and abstract expressionism, though juxtaposed with a sort of Instagram lifestyle sensibility. When shown as a gridded series, they recall the Instagram account @insta_repeat which curates gridded typologies of nearly identical influencer photos – for instance sunsets on a beach, or campfires with hiking boot clad feet visible in the foreground, transforming images, which individually are meant to signify the good life, into symbols of stifling homogeneity, cynically trying to capitalize on mass-produced sensations.
Unlike past movements in abstract or minimal art, however, Rioux is not striving to create self-contained objects, but windows into deeper currents that churn in the dark spaces where culture, technology and the subconscious flow together. Rioux’s digital works are not specifically images, but notes, ways of thinking. They connect to a larger discourse.
With Clouds, Rioux thinks aloud about what is hidden and what is revealed in our relationships to technology and nature. It is a meditation on “the cloud,” which, like real clouds, seem immaterial, but in fact are physical and have a material impact on the world. Rioux considers the juxtaposition between weight and weightlessness – the apparent weightlessness of virtual reality, against the mass, the inescapability of the material world. Technology promises a world of lightness, connectivity and the bounty of limitless growth, or if it cannot quite muster that illusion, at least the offer of escape into a simulated universe of carnivalesque distraction shepherding us away from the environmental catastrophe our economic system inflicts on the earth. In this series Rioux asks us to reflect on what the clouds hide.
There are 18 pieces in the Cloud collection.
Each archival pigment print is produced under the supervision of the artist.
The print is mounted under a single piece of 1/4"/ 6 mm gallery museum acrylic...
Category
2010s Contemporary Washington - Art
Materials
Plexiglass, Archival Pigment
Renaissance - Revival 2
By Paul-Émile Rioux
Located in Miami, FL
Archival photo print under acrylic glass.
Dimensions: 48 x 48 in.
Depth: 1/4 in.
Artist and photographer Paul-Émile Rioux lives in Montréal, Canada.
His lifelong interest in cutti...
Category
2010s Contemporary Washington - Art
Materials
Plexiglass, Archival Pigment