ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Neeko Paluzzi (he/him) is an artist based in the Outaouais region of Quebec. He holds a Masters of Fine Arts (2022) from the University of Ottawa and is a graduate of School of the Photographic Arts: Ottawa (2017). He was the recipient of the Karsh Continuum Photography Award from the City of Ottawa in 2021, had a feature exhibition at the Scotiabank CONTACT Festival in 2019, and was the winner of the 2018 Project X, Photography Grant from the Ottawa Arts Council. In addition, he has participated in artist residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts (2024), at DAIMON Centre (2023), and at l’Ecart (2022). Paluzzi teaches English at the Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute.

Email: neeko (at) paluzzi.ca

ARTIST STATEMENT

I am a lens-based artist and language educator who uses translation theories to create inter-textual installations. From music to literature, I am interested in translating other texts – both visual and non-visual – into my own photographic language, situating my own queer body at the centre of these visual translations. 

I am drawn to texts that have various linguistic translations and adaptations into other media. I gather these variations together for an intertextual overview of the texts. Following the translation doctrine of Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), I am not bound to the original source, focussing rather on the various incarnations and modifications that have occurred throughout the years. This approach to translation is non-hierarchical and anti-colonial, as each version of a text has equal importance. To Borges, a pure translation does not exist, and each translation is a mirror that reflects the translator who created it. 

This act not only challenges the traditional position of the translator, but also allows me to examine my own subjectivity and performativity as author of my own artworks. In order to overtly or covertly embed my body into my installations, I use digital technologies, such as 3D-scanning/printing and deep-fake algorithms. These photographic techniques create digital doubles of myself that personify contemporary queerness and identity. Although I utilize early twenty-first century technology, my art practice is grounded by the rigours of darkroom chemistry and scholarly research, presenting opportunities to explore the history of lens-based art in conversation with other artists and academics – both past and present.

REPRESENTATION

Currently, Neeko Paluzzi has prints/objects available through Patel-Brown Gallery in Toronto, CA and Studio Sixty-Six in Ottawa, CA

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I acknowledge that I live and work on the unceded, unsurrendered Territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation whose presence here reaches back to time immemorial. I acknowledge the historical oppression of lands, cultures, languages, and the original Peoples in what we now know as “Canada.” I acknowledge the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and that decolonization is the first step in healing settler trauma.

And, most importantly, I acknowledge the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island are here, have been here, and will always be here. #landback