John Latour

Recent activities / News

John Latour will be presenting a new text-based book work in the exhibition "From Book to Book" (group show) at the Leeds Art Gallery (Leeds, England) until April 20, 2008.

John Latour cuts, twists, and manipulates domestic found objects until they lose their functional properties. These everyday objects become less familiar because of the artist's intervention, they unsettle, and appear to be on the verge of collapse. The artist evokes a symbolic force in his work that calls to mind the absence of the human figure, or psychological tensions that lie under the surface of everyday life. John Latour pursues this investigation of instability and absence with intuitive-based work that draws on literary sources such as Frankenstein. By painting over certain words and passages of text, he creates new and ambiguous stories.

John Latour holds a graduate degree in Art History at Concordia University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Ottawa. He has participated in several group exhibitions and special projects in Canada and abroad; and is the recipient of grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.

12 July - 16 August 2003
John Latour: Four Corners

Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain is pleased to present Four Corners, an exhibition of sculptures by Montréal artist John Latour. In recent years, Latour has been inspired by old-fashioned pieces of furniture and found objects as source material for his art practice. In this current exhibition, broken chairs, a chest of drawers, and a wooden cane are transformed into uncanny works that occupy four corners of the gallery space. Everyday furnishings become strangely unfamiliar; and nostalgia gives way to a tension that invites viewers to reconsider the manner in which these pieces are regarded.

Four Corners also includes examples of an untitled and ongoing text-based series that the artist began in 1999. Latour uses white paint to blank out entire passages of text from some of his favourite works of fiction, including Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. As the original narratives disappear, new, and largely intuitive ones begin to emerge from the words that remain, such as This strange home (2002) and The steps were already suspicious (2002). Placed in antique wooden frames, these works resemble inspirational mottos like "Home Sweet Home"; however they are anonymous, and their new meanings remain ambiguous.

John Latour holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Ottawa. He has participated in several group exhibitions and special projects in Canada and abroad; and is the recipient of grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. His most recent solo show, Close Encounters/Rencontres intimes was held at the MacLaren Art Centre in Barrie, Ontario in 2002; and will travel to the Glendon Art Gallery (York University) in Toronto later this year. The artist presently lives and works in Montréal, where he is pursuing a graduate degree in art history at Concordia University.

Background information regarding the untitled text-based series, 1999-

The untitled text-based series is an ongoing project that began in 1999 when Latour started to remove words and passages of text from a paperback copy of one of his favourite works of fiction, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein . By applying white correction fluid to various pages in the novel, he began to create new phrases or stories embedded within the original 19th century narrative.

The inspiration for this series was another bookwork he produced earlier in the same year using an illustrated, hardcover copy of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray . For this piece, the artist selectively removed the word “beauty” and “beautiful” from each page of the novel using correction fluid. This intervention was in homage to Wilde, whose writings about aesthetics were largely overshadowed by the scandals of his personal life. Latour renamed the piece A World Without Beauty .

The “whiting out” of text suggests censorship, which seemed to suit The Picture of Dorian Gray given its historical context; however this approach seemed less appropriate to the artist for Frankenstein . By the end of the year, he started to remove individual pages from his paperback copy of Shelley's novel and “erase” enough of the original story so that it became unrecognizable.

Since 2002, Latour has been working exclusively with his favourite Gothic novels, Frankenstein and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde . Using layers of white acrylic paint he covers over words and passages of text in a largely intuitive manner. As the old narratives disappear, new and ambiguous ones appear from the words that remain.

Hung in antique frames, these pages resemble inspirational mottos from the past such as “Home Sweet Home.” Some stories are only one word in length; others suggest uncanny situations or point to subjects who endeavour to identify themselves in relation to the world around them. In some instances, fragmentary elements from the original stories can be seen under the layers of paint, or from the text printed on the other side of the pages. In works such as This creature was the model of repentance (2006), the link between the original narrative and the new one is almost allegorical.

In total, Latour has produced approximately forty works in this series since the beginning. Each piece is unique and can stand alone, although he often displays them in salon-style groupings.