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JOSÉ LINARES

More often than not, I see disconnections between other people and myself, as if there’s a wall between us. Perceived divisions in our experiences and associations have come to create a sense of isolation that I’ve chosen to invest in my sculptures and oil paintings. Coupled with a curiosity towards how we interact with our environment, I combine this feeling of isolation with images of architecture and real furniture. Through this juxtaposition of domestic space/objects and alienation, I explore the psychology behind our everyday settings. Building analogies to demonstrate an uncanny detachment between our environment and one another through our shared understandings of furniture and domestic spaces.

In my sculptural practice, I grab the viewer’s attention by presenting found objects in abnormal states. Starting primarily with furniture pieces and other common household items, my sculptures take full advantage of our familiarity to them. Deconstructed, destroyed, or carefully manipulated, each piece personifies themes involving structure, influence, or purpose, such as an entertainment center reconstructed to conform into a new wall space. Through this process, I translate internal, abstract conditions into external, physical reality.

Taking references from past personal experiences, my paintings depict a reimagined world designed to reflect ambiguity. Each oil painting provides a snapshot into a dream-like set of interior and exterior spaces that are at once both familiar and discomforting. Depicting figures and objects in distant perspectives, unnatural lighting, and recomposed architecture to evoke alienation, entrapment, and dissonance.

Manifested physically in my sculptures and more fluidly in my paintings, both practices take account of how we interact with places, people, and objects. Defying convention, unease emerges when familiar forms such a well-worn recliner or picturesque loveseat is bisected by an encroaching architecture. Similarly, as walls jut out and disruptive dividers emerges, space itself becomes antagonistic.

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