José Lara Menéndez

Email - josem.laramenendez@gmail.com

Instagram - @tu_patojo

Artist Bio

José Lara Menéndez is a visual figurative artist who holds a Bachelors of Fine Arts from Concordia University (2022) and is now continuing their studies as an MFA candidate there. The artist creates surrealist dreamlike scenes featuring cartoon figures navigating otherworldly spaces. Menéndez is the recipient of the SSHRC Master's program scholarship (2025), the Dale and Nick Tedeschi Studio Scholarship (2024), the Tom Hopkins Memorial Graduate Scholarship (2024), and the Research and Creation grant from the Canada Council for the Arts (2022). In 2022, they participated in the Art Volt mentorship program. Menéndez has exhibited their work across Montreal and Canada, and in 2024, joined the Art Volt Collection.

Artist Statement

My practice delves into themes of identity, gender, alienation, and the dissonance of time. I explore these ideas through dreamlike compositions of ambiguous, liminal spaces to evoke a sense of eeriness and emotional states of transition, disorientation, and excavation.

The figures I depict are caught between fictional characters and self-portraiture, suspended between past and future selves. They often appear in moments of pause or dislocation. Are they escaping, entering, regressing, or moving forward? The scenes, lit from unclear sources, omit a disjointed atmosphere and suggest alternate realities and paranormal states. Lingering hints of auras and vibrational light sources appear in my figures, insinuating an indistinguishable experience and a supra-sensorial expansion of the body to the outside world.

Drawing on my interests in queer theory, particularly Jack Halberstam's writing on queer failure and queer time, my work considers nonlinear queer temporality through elements reminiscent of structures of time such as surreally integrated calendars and depictions of spacetime. Through this, I strive to challenge colonial perspectives on gender and self-worth, the relentless pace of productivity culture, and the “hurry sickness” that distorts our sense of worth and presence, which often clashes with how I move through the world as a trans and autistic person of Guatemalan and Salvadoran heritage.

I consider my works as portals into internal landscapes simultaneously shaped by gender dysphoria and gender euphoria. The combination of socio-cultural references and domestic elements in my compositions becomes a visual cue for psychological tensions. These references converge to reflect the environmental and social constraints I navigate under capitalism. These contradictions surface as ambiguous expressions, distorted environments, and temporal dissonance.

Ultimately, my work carves out spaces of self-affirmation and different modes of being. Through the otherworldly, I aim to find a shared humanity of my personal experiences and to offer viewers glimpses into states of indeterminacy, resilience, and transformation.