Like a pathologist performing an autopsy on a victim who died of an unknown cause, artist Guy Laramee takes old books and carves out shapes that shock, surprise and amaze us. In his latest series, “Guan Yin,” the artist unearths mountains, caves, volcanoes, even water!
“Guan Yin” was triggered by the death of Laramee’s mother in 2011 as well as Japan’s tsunami. He says, “It was a couple of days after Japan’s tsunami. Images that devastated me. I like to think that through these images and the anxiety that they triggered in me, I anticipated my mom’s death… Everything we know, everything we did, everything we think we are, everything and everyone we love, all this will be wiped out. We would like to think that something will remain, culture, knowledge, or call it “life” if you don’t want to call it God, but of this also, we have no certitude. “No certitude” seems to be the only one we have, but even this is a concept, and concepts are the first thing to go down the drain, aren’t they?”
The artist’s work is currently on display at the Expression museum in Saint-Hyacinthe, Canada through August 12, 2012.
If you like this work, see a previous post on Laramee’s earlier work: “Book Sculptures by Guy Laramee.”
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