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STILL LIFE / LA VIDA QUIETA

“The works of JL González are drawn from his often peripatetic existence. In the immediacy of the sketchbook—a kind of visual journal—they reflect a certain time in life and a private project produced in the open. For an artist originally from the metropolis of Buenos Aires, St. John’s is an isolated, quiet place—a home base in which to find a community, but also a place of solitude and even cultural deprivation.

The body of work shown here is rooted in a time when González felt stuck in the city, trapped in a cold, tiny room. The artist has made a darkly comical tribute to resourcefulness, showing the same room and its contents from different perspectives, embracing the limitations of his situation.

In a time of pandemic, the works seem strangely topical; they make something of the almost-nothing. Created with “no script,” they are a humble monument to what we can create with what is at hand.” Pam Wendt, Curator at the Confederation Centre for the Arts, PEI, Canada.