Sarah Stevenson – Fragile

Vernissage: Thursday March 2nd at 6 pm
Exhibition: March 3 to 25

The McClure Gallery is pleased to feature the work of Sarah Stevenson in the exhibition, Fragile. This body of work is composed of a number of insubstantial objects suspended from the ceiling of the gallery at various heights so that they appear to float within the space they occupy. These pieces are quite voluminous, yet have very little mass. Each one is a shape whose surface contours are mapped by a network of lines made of thread and wire, forming a fragile cage containing empty space.
The process of constructing the objects involves the production of diagrams and a system to convert these to three-dimensional forms. Because they are made only of linear elements, threads, and wire rings, the objects resemble three-dimensional drawings in space. The weight of each piece, although it is minimal, draws some threads taut, making them appear to be straight, ruler-drawn lines. Others, taking less weight, are slack and appear drawn by hand. These lines form relatively precise grids, similar to computer-generated renderings, however the symmetrical shapes described by them appear more organic than geometric. Most of these shapes are non-representational but may bring to mind various recognizable forms: architectural elements, vessels, bits of anatomy, or tiny creatures seen under a microscope.

The near-weightlessness of the works makes them responsive to any movement in their vicinity. Those that are suspended from a single point have a tendency to rotate slowly around their vertical axes. The almost imperceptible motion of these fragile forms makes them seem like traces, afterimages left by things that have disappeared or handmade holograms of things that have not yet come into being.

SARAH STEVENSON lives and works in Montreal. She holds a BFA from University of Victoria, British Columbia, and has had numerous group and solo exhibitions in Canada since 1987. Her work is in various private and public collections, among them La collection de prêt d’oeuvre d’art du Musée du Québec, Leonard and Bina Ellen Gallery, and the Canada Council Art Bank. She is represented by Galerie René Blouin in Montreal.