Bruno Billio is currently the Resident Artist at the Gladstone Hotel. Billio is a Canadian artist working from an interdisciplinary background. At once an installation artist, a sculptor, and a designer, Billio creates challenging works informed by his command of each of these practices.
Billio is fascinated by the architecture of spaces and objects. He transforms everyday objects, re-purposing them and even redefines the scale and position of objects. He is known for his stacked sculptures of furniture, found objects and string installations.
Billio’s artistic practice is informed by the active displacement and staging of the found object, a contemporary art strategy with a historically established lineage. The everyday is reinterpreted through its spatial and contextual re-appropriation by the artist, who presents himself as both an interventionist and an inventor.
The architectural tendencies in Billio’s work are revealed in the structural play and whimsy of many of his installation pieces. Whether a fireplace seemingly elevated by women’s shoes, or columns of books creating literal textual armatures in an interior, the ironic negotiation of utility, culture, and aesthetic is always seemingly at the forefront of the artist’s imagination. Nickel plated suitcases, and perforated suitcases illuminated from within, reveal a tendency towards the investigation of interiors and exteriors, structural combinations and compromises, all informed by an aesthetic sensibility which is fuelled by his sophisticated sense of design.