%20-%20Gary%20LaPointe%20Jr__edited.jpg)
Gary LaPointe Jr.
"Gary LaPointe Jr's interdisciplinary practice encompasses sculpture, installation, mixed media, and drawing, focusing on the relationships between constructed environments, natural systems, and identity formation. Central to his work is an exploration of how material constructs are shaped by, and in turn reflect, evolving cultural and ecological conditions.
LaPointe engages in processes of collection, transformation, and recontextualization, using found objects, industrial remnants, discarded materials, and foraged organic matter to create new forms and narratives. Materials are chosen based on their physical properties, methods of construction, intended utility, and the social, political, and personal contexts they embody. Often sourced from production and waste systems, these materials serve as carriers of embedded histories and cultural residues. Their reuse acts as a lens through which to examine environmental degradation, material excess, and the infrastructures that sustain them.
Through processes of addition, subtraction, and spatial reconfiguration, LaPointe questions the function and semiotic potential of these materials. His work produces sculptural pieces, constructed assemblages, and spatial interventions that challenge conventional interpretations of form and utility. Additionally, LaPointe's practice interrogates the relationships between materiality, form, and language; not only exploring the potential of formal properties but also emphasizing how meaning is influenced by context, perception, and use.
Underlying LaPointe's work are intersecting concerns with ecological precariousness, queer identity, and the social codings of masculinity and desire. By blurring the boundaries between organic and synthetic, stable and fragmented, his process-oriented approach seeks to articulate the fluid and often unstable nature of materiality, identity, and our environments.
Gary LaPointe Jr. ( 1991, USA ) graduated in 2016 from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago with an MFA in Sculpture and was also awarded the 2016 Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award from the International Sculpture Center. He had received his BFA from Lesley University College of Art and Design and was also a resident at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2013. LaPointe has exhibited nationally and internationally with select solo and group exhibitions at Galerie B-312 (Montreal) Roman Susan Art Foundation (Chicago) Randy Alexander Gallery (Chicago) LVL3 Gallery (Chicago) Heaven Gallery (Chicago) Lunder Arts Center (Cambridge) Kunsthal Charlottenborg (Copenhagen) and the Royal Academy of Arts (London). LaPointe is also featured in 100 Sculptors of Tomorrow published by Thames and Hudson and BEERS Gallery in London (2019). He attended the Vermont Studio Center (2025), the Wassaic Projects Residency (2019) and had also received a Purchase Award from the Working Artist Organization (2020). He currently lives and works in Chicago, IL."
Website:
Instagram:
@grylpntjr
%20-%20Gary%20LaPointe%20Jr_.jpg)
Updraft, 17 x 1.5 x 21”, repurposed brushed aluminum, graphite rubbed Giant Sequoia pinecone, aluminum frame and hardware, 2023
"This work conveys a human-made system making contact with the natural world and the implications of that exchange through a lens of climate and ecological crisis. The Giant Sequoia pinecones themselves were foraged on the West Coast of the US and are interesting objects, as a seed-bearing element of an endangered type of conifer that is over 3400 years old that have over time naturally adapted to forest fires as these cones will open after being exposed to extreme heat. The graphite renders these cones as an image and as if they came into contact with fire, a naturally formed element with mythical significance that needs a force of destruction (which happens to threaten their existence) to grow."
%20-%20Gary%20LaPointe%20Jr_.jpg)
Crossover toolbox, 71 x 19.5 x 17”, altered Craftsman crossover truck bed toolbox, 2022
"The deconstructed crossover truck bed toolbox has been dismantled to the point where the object remains as a frame or scaffolded image of its previous self. Dissolving this specific object shifts the utility container that once kept its contents locked and secure, no longer mobile and mounted on a pickup truck but still signifying the potential of expansion, construction, and labor. This object also acts as a footnote to the full-sized, heavy-duty pickup truck as a romanticized and rugged American symbol of class, value, gender identity, power, and freedom foiled by excess and hazardous warming emissions."
%20-%20Gary%20LaPointe%20Jr_.jpg)
Flowering dogwood, 21 x 25 x 1.5”, graphite, colored pencil on found photograph and truck mud splatter decal on Hahenmühle paper, repurposed aluminum, graphite treated wooden frame, hardware, 2022
"The interior of the frame that holds this mixed media piece was produced out of castoff pieces of a deconstructed crossover truck bed toolbox; reversing the exterior of the form to create the interior of another. The wooden profile of the frame has been treated with polished graphite to extend the medium and main element of the drawing out of the 2D framework. The found photographic image of a flowering dogwood tree, was traced over with horizontal lines of graphite and light gray colored pencils; creating a line system that skips over the floral elements, but shifts visibility and alters the context of the image; as if one was looking through a blanket of haze, fog, smoke. Mud-splatter truck deals have been applied to another image which has been cut out, shifted, and inlaid into this image; adding another access point to view the fragility of our natural environment in light of exceeding expansion, construction, and heavy-duty emissions."