Paul Roux

ARTIST STATEMENT:

My visual arts practice encompasses painting, video and live performance.

In a world that perhaps sometimes leaves some room for improvement in terms of how we treat each other, and the planet that sustains us, much of my work (whether painting, performance/public intervention or writing) is concerned with processing "˜stuff' that I see in the world that I live in; with attempting to come to terms with some experience, way of seeing or scientific reality.

Some examples of such "˜stuff' might be imbalances in resources, social censure, consumer consciousness, beauty, species extinction, perversely utilitarian power-tripping at the expense of the planet and the "˜common man', and so on.

My performance work is usually concerned with engaging viewers around the separation between humanity and the planet; and between the socialized self and (what I call) the "real" self.

Project Apology [the project that I am proposing for this residency], is an ongoing video documentation of my undertaking to apologize, in person and as a self-appointed member of humanity, to non-human species on the planet that are being adversely affected by human activity. The project's intent is to use satire as a means to deliver...