Untitled, from the series Party Alone, 2010 by Laurie Kang
Untitled, from the series Party Alone, 2010 by Laurie Kang
Untitled, from the series Party Alone, 2010 by Laurie Kang
Untitled, from the series Party Alone, 2010 by Laurie Kang
Untitled, from the series Party Alone, 2010 by Laurie Kang
Laurie Kang
Website: http://www.lauriekang.com
Bio:
Laurie Kang is a Toronto-based artist working in film photography, collage and sculpture. She received her BFA from Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec. Examining the medium of photography, she explores abstraction, drawing from both fictions and realities to create ambiguous, new sur-realities. Her strong imagination and keen sense of color and shape entices viewers to re-examine their relationships to, and within, familiar spaces. Kang's artwork has been exhibited widely at galleries within Canada, including Tinku Gallery (Toronto, ON); Roberts Street Social Centre (Halifax, NS); Lowercase Gallery (Vancouver, BC); Art Mur (Montreal); and most recently at Gallery 44 (Toronto, ON). Her work has been published in print in Canada, the U.S. and U.K. Still early in her career, Kang has already worked with such prominent artists as German artist Candice Breitz. Kang was a participant in Breitz' Factum Kang/Same Same art project at the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto (2009). She was also commissioned by Breitz to create a collaborative video work entitled Face to Face (2009) with artist Hanna Hur. In 2011, she was selected by the Magenta Foundation as an emerging Canadian photographer for their annual Flash Forward competition. She is the recipient of 2nd Prize from the prestigious John B. Aird Gallery's annual juried photo exhibition, Photo-Op (2011). Most recently, she received a grant from the Ontario Arts Council to extend her practice and career to Berlin.
Artist Statement:
My practice is based in film photography, collage, sculpture and installation. I employ the photographic image's ability to capture an image and present it as an apparently true document in time and history. Using both created and found images and objects, I merge fact with fiction, distorting and challenging perceptions of reality, dimension and space. Combining 2D with 3D--photography, collage, sculpture and installation, I explore a staged abstraction using the camera, paper and found and created objects to make images that focus on symbolism, composition, color and shape. Following elementary rules of design, more complex questions of space and reality are formed in contrast. The resulting images evoke tensions between fact and fiction, ultimately blurring their distinctions as they become sur-realities with ambiguous open narratives. This series, Party Alone, is the result of creating images that consist of both 2D and 3D collages, sculptures and installations. It's an exploration of abstraction, and a conceptual exploration of the medium of photography; the images express a 3-dimensionality but are rendered 2-dimensional through the final product of a flat print. Undertones of the fantastical and strange in the banal, as well as boredom, loneliness and depression, are also expressed.