"Hundreds and Thousands: A Site-specific Installation by Sarah Stevenson"
2002-01-23 until 2002-03-03
Bishop's University Art Gallery
Lennoxville, QC, CA

Fashioned from utilitarian materials, Stevenson‚s quasi- representational sculptures appear deceptively familiar. Pendulous lead forms reminiscent of tear-drops balance tenuously on wire anchors, while white globular objects molded from tissue paper extend from arching metal stems affixed to the wall. The opacity of the former groupings is contrasted with a series of organic, womb-like forms, whose underlying metal structures are enveloped by transparent black nylon sheathes.

Clustered in random patterns alongside drawings of similar shapes, these works are seemingly suspended, hovering in an indeterminate space between abstraction and representation. The uncertainty that accompanies these sculptures‚ indiscernibility encourages a multiplicity of readings. Attempts to decode these artworks within the conventions of a literal linguistic system will offer limited insight. Visceral engagement will only ensue when the viewer submits to a state of corporeal recollection, revisiting memories of bodily experiences. The materiality of these forms induces an exploration of the sensorial dimensions of memory, summoning desires and fears from the depths of our unconscious and providing conduits to our corporeal past.

Sarah Stevenson is a Montreal-based artist who has had solo exhibitions at the Southern Alberta Gallery and the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts. Participating extensively in group exhibitions on the international scene, her works have been shown in museums and galleries in the United States, Columbia and Austria. In addition to being awarded the Canada Council Paris Studio from September to November 2001, in January 2002 her work will appear in Officina America a group exhibition to be held in Bologna, Italy.

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