BIO:
J. La Ve’ (he/ they, Billings, Montana b. 2001) is a multidisciplinary artist working primarily with welded armatures, unorthodox fabric, and canvas stretching techniques. Graduating from Parsons with a BFA in Fine Arts (2027) and a BA from Eugene Lang in Urban Studies (2027), he is currently based in New York City, NY
STATEMENT:
The performance of the road being the stringent vitality of suburbanized America is which I attribute my methodologies from. Through experimenting with the relational, and the idea of an object covered in a shroud, I elucidate a practice parallel to Jeanne Claude and Christo’s methodologies as well as building on the force of twisting an otherwise intractable material, pertaining to the pedagogical approaches of John Chamberlin.
In exploring a visual representation of the mass obsessions of the modern motor vehicle, I express the parasocial relationships people have with cars, road anxiety, and the power of a vehicle becoming consuming. Materiality is based on distorting the form. I experiment with warped material as a through line towards a steel armature, in which nylon spandex are stretched, animating its third dimension and archiving movement in an unorthodox informational system.
The documentation of urban space inherently warps the perspectives that once were in the image, echoing memory to recreate the built environment. Within this, obsession that in its sculptural state, becomes a paradoxical “stand still” between the vehicle and the viewer. A softer material as a facade to a steel base becomes one that is fragile and feminine, reworking the myth that has taken over mechanized America as one of masculinity.
As the motorways of the United States have become the veins of the country and the forefront of regional connectivity, the mass fetish of automobiles has influenced not only city design, but our individuality as well. The Interstate Highway System has always been a space of hostility, a display of masculinity, and one of anonymity between drivers.
Email: jlaveart@gmail.com