Just a Moment

Jeremy Borsos

July 26 to August 24, 2019

Every day is a well trodden path of the unconscious.
Infinite gestures within the instantaneous allow us to satisfy
our biologic and psychic needs without fully recognizing what we are doing.
The toothpaste has run out again, so I buy a tube of the reliable sort.
The book I ordered has arrived in the post.

The ubiquity of the attendant waste of these actions
are the barometer of this sleight of mind.
They are the diametric opposite of memory that in turn,
defines the events we recall and celebrate.
This hierarchy of moments some call personal histories.

Our own private archive is not possible
without traversing the landfill of these subconscious moments.
Arriving home, I take the debris from my pocket.
It includes the receipt for the toothpaste.
While recalling the trip to the drugstore, I pinch the receipt absentmindedly.
I have made a little boat.
Or maybe it is the ship my grandparents arrived on.

In allowing my mind to wander,
the awkward need for recollection
sinks the ship along with all but the greatest exploits
of my forebears.
The path has reached the border between the present and the past.
A moment later, I have stuffed the toothpaste receipt
inside the box my book arrived in; a dry dock of anonymity.

– J Borsos, July 2019

Testing the unreliability of memory through the context of prosaic actions, Borsos has created a series of painted aluminum and plastic sculptures, each work titled by the year of the source material and a visual referent. “Even in our dream state, for better or worse, our hands are not necessarily idle. It may be the act of disregarding the detritus of life, or sitting in a fog while making miniature assemblages of available wastepaper.” It is our preoccupation with the importance of living, he says, that allows these muddled drifting acts to recall and transcend our past.

Jeremy Borsos attended Emily Carr School of Art and the Art Students League in New York. His practice is multidisciplinary and includes writing, photography, installation, painting and video. He has exhibited nationally and internationally. Together with his partner Sus, the Borsos have developed a meta-historical use of salvaged architecture, constructing multiple dwellings and ancillary structures, most recently in the restoration of the Blue Cabin in North Vancouver.