Self-Portrait As Space Cloud
October 1-30 * Exhibit open during all events and by appointment: email info@rhizomedc.org * Opening reception Saturday October 1 from 7-9pm
I am a cloud of space dust. I am a collection of particles dealing with depression. I am weaving through waves of space-time and isolation. My work is the product of this existentialism, loneliness, and search for a connection to the sublime. I see cosmic phenomena as a reflection of humanity in its grounded experiences and heaven-ward musings. Through minimal and concise abstraction, my work highlights the fear and curiosity of the unknown, the pain and clarity of silence, and the delicate and fluctuating nature of states of being.
I am a light-bringer. Light is my muse; intangible, radiant, and divine. Materials such as mirrors, glass, spray paint, charcoal and paper seek to capture this immateriality. My process gently builds value, pulling light, form, and symbol from black voids. These works use drawing techniques in the mark making. Charcoal is delicately accumulated on paper while spray paint is subtracted away from glass mirrors to reveal ambient light.
My practice is religious, meditative, and psycho-therapeutic; finding spirituality in physics and science in the divine. Celestial bodies and astrophysical phenomena such as black holes and nebula become both symbols of faith and representations of emotional and mental struggles.
Lucas J Rougeux, born in Niagara Falls, NY in 1995, is a queer multimedia artist currently living and working in Washington DC. He acquired a Bachelor of Arts in 2017 at Alfred University with a focus in interdisciplinary art. Lucas has exhibited in galleries in New York, Maryland, Virginia, Washington DC, and California. His work has been published in various zines, art publications, and virtual exhibitions. Through his practice, Lucas explores themes of sexuality, queerness, spirituality, astrophysics, and the intangible unknown. His work has been inspired by astrophysics, light, sensation of the body, the queerness of identity, religion, and poetry. True to his interdisciplinary education, Lucas utilizes a multitude of media including oil and watercolor paint, ink, charcoal and graphite, spray paint, performance art, installation sculpture, textiles, and printmaking.
Diagrams of Death as Sacred Gravity