​My interest: Our shifting relationship to space and place, and the ways we perceive the environment and nature. The Project:  To take the viewer to places that feel both intimate and alien, suspended between  the real  and the virtual. How:  By blending  reality and invention through constructed images  using non-AI-generated 3-D models. Why: To unsettle perception and  break free from what we accept as true.

Montreal-based artist and photographer Paul-Émile Rioux creates virtual worlds at the intersection of abstraction and figuration. His work invites viewers to question perception, oscillating between the reflection of a tangible reality and a purely imaginary construct.

Rioux explores our shifting relationship to space and place, and the ways we perceive the environment and nature. Through constructed images made with non-AI-generated 3-D models and advanced digital tools, he creates spaces that feel both intimate and alien, suspended between the real and the virtual.

His practice combines digital technologies with a photographic sensibility. By deliberately orchestrating algorithmic anomalies within modeling software, he generates environments that appear photographic while remaining entirely abstract.

These images do not depict specific locations. Instead, they function as fragments of virtual matter in transformation, opening spaces where reality and fiction remain in tension.

Through this approach, Rioux examines how memory, perception, and meaning are formed through images. His work seeks to unsettle visual certainty and challenge what we accept as true.
Artist Statement

My work explores our shifting relationship to space and place, and the ways we perceive the environment and nature. I create virtual environments that feel both intimate and alien, suspended between the real and the virtual.

Using non-AI-generated 3-D models and digital construction processes, I build images that appear tangible but do not correspond to any existing site. I am interested in spaces that suggest a photographic reality while remaining abstract and unstable.

By working with digital irregularities and constructed visual forms, I create images that provoke both fascination and disorientation. Through them, I aim to unsettle perception and open a reflection on how we inhabit, imagine, and interpret the worlds around us.