Lucas Aguirre: A Constructive Instability
Curator: Samuel-Arsenault-Brassard
ELLEPHANT VR artist and curator
Text by Samuel-Arsenault-Brassard
Lucas Aguirre is a painter who has transitioned his art practice into the realm of VR and digital art. His paintings and drawings vary between dramatic portraiture and dense surreal explosive forces. His hand carries an intimate understanding of light, shadows.
The VR worlds he creates are a direct evolution of his paintings and carries the same passion and sensibility. This is one of the most unique aspects of the work of Lucas, his VR worlds are painterly, they explore a new hybrid language. When there is a chaos, a messiness, it is not the chaos of the digital world, we sense the splatter of real paint, the tracing of the pencil, mixing with the reimagined scanned bodies. The unique qualities of reality are merged and twisted in his digital work, building up a constant contrast and conflict that heightens the emotional charge of the environments.
For Lucas, the trip between the medium of painting and VR is a continuous dance, a core part of the process. He jumps techniques from theatrical 3D scanned models, oil paint-strokes, to a final creation and composition in virtual reality. He also experiments with painting over printed images of his VR worlds. The frenetic jumps between ideas and mediums shows a passionate and playful exploration of the digital tools. The results are fascinating, images, worlds that demand to be inhabited and felt fully. Complex worlds that still carry the unique trace of the human touch, of craftsmanship.
The physical works presented are a dynamic series of horizons, merging figures filled with intricate details and dense movement. These large compositions show the passion of the artist going “all in” and they also create the setting to transition into the VR part of the experience. Here visitors will experience the opposite, a boundless white void with a single spiritual entity and a soundscape by Franco Bellavita.
In this series, Lucas explores the constant tension of instability, referencing the present days. We see a dematerialization of matter, of reality. The emergence of dreams being manifested as digital matter, as extensions of the body/soul. We explore the moment before collapse, through a frail equilibrium, through the beauty of weakness. Emotions become visible, fragments wildly emanating through the air.
These intense emotional moments are unique opportunities for change. Here we stand, at the precipice of the world, at the end of times, ready to change everything.
In this fraction of time, everything is lost in a complex movement. This moment of infinite possibilities represents our excitement for change, for the next evolution to emerge.
