“Hey, Centretown.
My name is Jose Palacios. I’m an artist from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. I was born in Lima, Peru, but I’ve lived in Ottawa most of my life.
I do music, visual art, and I’m also a DJ in Ottawa. I’ve held a couple of longstanding events as a DJ. The first was Kitchen Party, and currently it’s Loose Joints (@loosejoints613) with three other friends.
As a musician, I was in a band called MY DAD VS YOURS in the early 2000s, and most recently I am doing a solo project called Radical Joy.
I’ve always made music just on my own after I was in a band, and I just wanted to write songs with vocals on it, and that’s how that started.
It just features me collaborating… the recording is a collaboration with Mike Dube.
As a visual artist, I started making art in 2018 or so. I started with digital art, and then I moved on to doing paintings on canvas and paper.
I’ve had shows in Ottawa at various locations, including the Galerie Annexe, the City Hall Art Gallery with a group show.
I think my favourite part of painting is the instinct that an artist has, and I think that happens without thinking about it, and that’s usually the first thing that you do.
So I always start a painting with just a feeling or instinct, and it doesn’t always work, but usually there’s some elements that your brain is just trying to get out. I like to build paintings on those feelings.
The city has bought a couple pieces, so there’s always group shows, and then I’ll organise art shows in different locations, but mostly you can find my work through Instagram.”
Jose Palacios
Multi-disciplinary Artist
@opencloseddoors
Photos by our friend @_finn
