What does it mean to know a thing? Is it enough to understand its material qualities and physical form? Or is it something more fleeting and elusive – an appreciation of an intangible quality, one that is much more difficult to pin-down?
What does it mean to preserve a thing? To suspend it in time and place? To try and pause (if only momentarily) the continuous and relentless process of transformation?
What does it mean to replicate a thing? To create a copy, a facsimile. To cast it in bronze, or render it in plaster?
What does it mean to isolate a form? To remove it from its current context and situate it within a new space?
In Chime Shift, her first solo exhibition in Toronto, Laura Piasta continues to grapple with such questions. Comprised primarily of sculptural work that has been developed over the past two years, the exhibition weaves together Piasta’s long-standing interest in sound with her more materially driven sculptural practice.
Upon entering the gallery space, viewers encounter Good Vibrations (Two) a cast bronze set of speakers developed during a residency in Copenhagen.
To its left appears Curtain for Chime Shift, a ceiling high sculptural piece that acts as a sort of index or Rosetta stone for the exhibition — hinting at influences, inspirations, and historical objects spanning from the bronze age right up until the near future.
As you move further throughout the space, you begin to notice an unfolding of layers. Steel sculptural forms are stacked upon one another, occupying both 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional space at once. A transparent shirt is adorned with a snake like material and plaster cast nipples — both concealing and exposing simultaneously.
Piasta’s interests are similarly layered and complex. Elements of time, transformation, motherhood, and technology all coalesce and interweave throughout the exhibition. Through these fragments, Piasta creates a protracted space where meaning and narrative are continually being re-made.
