BIO

Juca Aquino is an interdisciplinary artist and was born in São Paulo, Brazil. Aquino is currently in his BFA honours year at the School of Art at University of Manitoba. Aquino has exhibited work in Winnipeg at La Maison des artistes visuels francophones, Martha Street Studio, and the School of Art Student Gallery. Juca Aquino lives and works in Winnipeg, Canada.

STATEMENT

The main concept behind my recent work is recontextualizing evidence of labour on found objects so that it may be reinterpreted by the viewer as artistic aspects of the work. Over the years, as I have been observing my surroundings in places I have worked, studied and lived in, I have become fascinated with objects and tools used in the art-making process. In my project Homework I went to Home Depot and picked up some 18×30” pieces of MDF. I then went to school and replaced the existing tabletops of the drawing desks with the new MDF. Last September, I brought the tabletops back to the school and installed them in the hallway. In this project my aim is to recontextualize a working surface as an artwork; a painting.

The most important part of my work when bringing it into the gallery is the installation. Installing the work somewhere other than where it came from is interesting because if you change the context where the work comes from, people will pay attention to it for the first time. By rectifying and installing these objects, the original purpose is made unclear. People ask me: “What are those blocks from? Are those axe handles? Shovel handles? Matchsticks? Did you create this? Did you find it? Did you modify this?” By showing these objects in a gallery space, they are divorced from their original purpose, allowing one to see the mark-making, scratches, cracks, and splatters as sculptural or painterly aspects of the piece.