Since he began exhibiting in the early 1990s, Jef Bourgeau has inspired controversy. His practice, which is considered by some to be a provocation against the art world itself, essentially involves the remaking of art and artists, both imagined and real. Bourgeau has been a vexing figure for many and his “interventions” have continued to be viewed as a subversion of traditional notions of artistic practice and integrity.

Preoccupied with the relationship between vision, things and language while playing on the theme of similarity and difference, Jef Bourgeau's artistic lineage can be traced through a specifically European Symbolist-based conceptual tradition descending from Mallarmé and Jarry through to Duchamp, Magritte and Broodthaers. The artist's process of accumulating and arranging fragments of images and video is echoed in the viewer's experience of the finished exhibition, where memories of things encountered shape the perception of other things yet to be seen. The blurring of boundaries between past and present is emphasized by Bourgeau's practice of revisiting his own material and re-presenting previously exhibited works in different configurations potentially generating new meaning.

Often manipulating found footage material, Bourgeau isolates these frames from their original story line and leads the images to a new level of significance. By manipulating hidden evocative qualities and an associative potential, the artist creates a new narrative altogether. In so doing, he multiplies a significant moment into one that invokes a personal interpretation by each viewer.