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Justin de Lima is a visual artist working out of Toronto. He is currently a student at OCAD University. Justin uses found material as a device to explore concepts of loss and home. The idea of utilizing raw material to create something fragile and elegant is an interest of his. This is Justin's fourth group show in the city. 

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Justin and NOTW:

  

"There comes a time in everyone's life when they're old enough to hear the bits about the family history they were never told before because they were too young and the histories too dark.  

This past summer I returned to my family's ancestral village in the Açores Islands for the first time in many years. After learning about the village my parents grew up in, I took an interest in my family's history and the research led me to Little Portugal in downtown Toronto: the neighbourhood my parents settled down in after leaving the islands. For a time, I also called the sprawling neighbourhood home and ironically, lived a street away from my parents' old place. 

By painting from photographs taken in Little Portugal that illustrate my family's immigrant experience and incorporating found objects taken during my time in the neighbourhood, I hope to reconcile the two cultures that have influenced my identity most.

Like many Canadians, I suffer from an identity crisis. By exploring the past, I hope to resolve this postmodern predicament and conjure the confidence to embrace a multicultural identity."

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Check out Justin's beautiful work here.