The body becomes a tool, expressing to the viewer the divine or sublime world for which one searches. Working with metal, cast objects, performance, installation, and video, I attempt to create a sense of connection and intimacy with the natural world, a bond that can often be hard to find. The viewer is reminded that we are bound to earth, and therefore my pieces represent a longing to connect to an environment with which one is constantly confronted.

Nature becomes an important aspect of my work as it is a place of centring the mind and body, often finding manual methods of connection. Much as the romanticist era considered a return to nature, I hold faith within a metamodernist return towards similar ideals. I always consider a milieu heavily influenced by the immediate and the gratifying, and I intend to re-establish the connection that this cultural shift has nullified through returning to manual or natural methods of thought and action.

I often work with one similar concept more than once; most utilizing the body, focusing on the expressive nature of the body within it’s action, position, and aesthetic form.”Be it the way a person’s hand feels, or the way the weather was on a particular day; I find that within the smallest moments exist the most cogent meanings.” The body becomes an aid in the visual translation of intended experiences. The statements that I make are often honest and minimalistic with a subtle and connective nature. I strive to make work that will be remembered by the viewer long after the initial viewing; much like that of a memory that cannot be cast aside.”

During the Luminous Bodies residency, my work will focus on the process of peregrination, attributing self-gain to travel and exploring aspects of loss and isolation associated with. To do this I will consider myself and environment in their current states and explore ways of combining myself into states of synchronicity with environment, using the mediums of video and performance. This is why along with the aspect of journey, the location of Gibraltar Point will be essential in the augmentation of my work. Through explorative methods of communing with the natural, I will create construction of otherness through separation.

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Adam Filek works with sculpture, installation and performance to express minimalistic notions of liberation, connection, and melancholia. Filek currently resides in Toronto, Ontario and is attending OCAD University for sculpture and installation.