Cuir, bois de noyer, cristaux de montre vintage, coton, fil, vernis à bois, 2024
Faces (5) is from a larger series of fourteen pairs of sculptural shoes that function as drawers and jewellery boxes, each storing small objects. This pair in particular houses embedded watch crystals that were carefully removed from vintage wristwatches. Small indentations are made to precisely accommodate the size of the individual watch faces. Time is represented in a way that is queered and stripped down from its function.
Kyle Alden Martens is a Montréal-based artist who works through sculpture, installation, performance, and video. They construct sculptural work that engages with ideas of how clothing is tailored to fit the body while repositioning queerness to disrupt symbolic and physical structures. Martens holds an MFA in sculpture from Concordia University and a BFA in intermedia from NSCAD University.
Their practice has been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, and the Dale and Nick Tedeschi Studio Arts Fellowship, and they received the Bronfman Fellowship in Contemporary Art. Their work has been shown at Centre CLARK, Bradley Ertaskiran, Pangée, Circa Art Actuel, Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery (Montréal); Khyber Centre for the Arts (Halifax); Stride Gallery (Calgary); Eastern Edge Gallery (St John’s); Barely Fair (Chicago); NADA Foreland (Catskill); Feria Material (Mexico City); and Patel Brown (Montréal & Toronto). Martens has attended ACRE Residency (Wisconsin), Daïmôn (Gatineau), and the Brucebo Fine Art Residency (Sweden), among others.