TAKING SHAPE
Diana Hamm’s guide to bringing sculpture home.
WHEN PEOPLE FIRST START BUYING ART, it’s generally out of need, and a new house with empty walls often tops that list. As such, most first-time buyers start with paintings, photographs and works on paper; basically, things to fill the walls.
While this makes complete sense, I think sculpture is an oft overlooked medium on the domestic scale. While sculpture can be overwhelming in both price and size, it’s not always the case, and the right sculpture has the power to totally transform a room. Because you can appreciate it from 360 degrees, it works well in all sorts of places, often in spaces where a painting wouldn’t. Read on to discover my favourite types of sculpture and some fantastic Canadian artists working in this realm.
The most accessible way to start with sculpture is to buy small pieces to be used as objects. Rather than buying mass-produced decorative accents, adding a small sculpture on a tabletop or bookshelf can really pack a punch.
Montreal-based Margot Klingender’s work, for example, would be a great addition in this format. Her spunky sculptures look like doodles formed in 2D, which relate back to her formal training in painting and drawing. She uses strong, masculine materials such as bronze and leather and mixes them with more feminine subjects and wobbly lines, which hints at a naiveté in her work and creates a duality that’s really interesting.
Another Montreal-based artist creating wonderful small sculptures is Trevor Baird. I love the vessel shapes relating to historical vases, but it’s really the designs on the objects that are steeped in zine culture that keep me gripped. Trevor draws on cultural references and is inspired by daily images. His ceramics are continuations of the zines he’s produced, but the process is reversed; he allows the images to be “open” rather than have a sense of finality when a book is closed. They’re beautiful and intelligent pieces.