Figuration & Abstraction

摘要

Marked by duality and ambivalence, the sculptures of the Toronto artist Susan Collett are concerned with developing new forms, producing something between figuration and abstraction, baroque and minimalist art. In tune with postmodern discourses and convinced that it's all been done before and nothing remains but reiteration, Collett is an artist to really think about new forms, their polysemy, and what they might produce in terms of an imaginarium. In Collett's art pieces, this approach involves modelling big sheets of earthenware paperclay that are highly worked and torn, and finally turned into huge vessels;;or vases if you think in terms of reproducing the shape of a 'readymade'. Her sculptures from the Labyrinth series (2007-2009), as well as the collection of Carpets (2004-2007), are based on soft and solid materials - clay and copper - that gradually transform layer-by-layer, piece-by-piece, to represent or mask an ordinary object, be it a carpet or a vase. In the process, a brand new form emerges, an unexpected combination of the visible and the invisible.