Sarah Stevenson: Nothing Hidden

Ephemeral grids made from wire and thread defy traditional assumptions about the weight and solidity of sculpture.

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For three decades, Montreal-based artist Sarah Stevenson has been developing a visual language that challenges sculpture’s weighted and static nature by using wire, thread and translucent fabrics. Her exhibition, Nothing Hidden, on view at the Esker Foundation in Calgary until Dec. 21, elegantly captures the underlying designs of nature, evoking both biological forms and mathematical modelling.

Ten sculptures, all constructed during the last three years, are suspended from the ceiling. They resemble three-dimensional drawings that float in space, gently rotating in air currents generated by passing visitors.

Each form’s surface is a network of fine lines composed of horizontal wires and vertical threads. These fragile cages or exoskeletons suggest both the celestial and the microscopic. They range in size from five feet to 16 feet, in either height or length, and are made with subtle, contrasting colours, such as blue and green, red and orange, or pink and yellow.

The show includes drawings of four forms. The British-born artist plans each sculpture using intricate large-scale drawings composed of lines made with coloured felt pens or pencil crayons. Their pencil under-drawings have numerical notations that act as blueprints for her meticulous constructions.

The resulting sculptures are a finely tuned balance of symmetry, pattern, weightlessness and tension. Their translucence plays with the relationship between sculpture and the three-dimensional space it inhabits. As the show's accompanying text suggests, the works are in “a constant and shifting dialogue of transparency and containment.”

Although Stevenson’s work is ephemeral, her titles often suggest the opposite. In Plumb, the gridded form is pointed at the top and then bulges out like a round fruit. The structure is comprised of concentric bright green wire circles tightly strung together with vertical plum-coloured threads knotted at each cross-point, and anchored by a long threaded tail that hovers just above the floor. The form, evocative of a pomegranate or a spinning top, rotates quietly on its axis. The title makes one think of lead-weighted plumb lines used to measure the depth of water or ascertain a vertical line. Despite the object’s apparent weightlessness, the title perfectly describes how it occupies space.

Other sculptures are titled Bone, Lathed Egg, Vessels I and II, Diamonds and Pearls, Dart in Sack, Stacked Chandeliers, Swallow and Triumph of Gravity. Each is uniquely shaped and, like Plumb, based on the circle.

Stevenson’s attempts to represent seemingly complex systems ultimately prompt marvel at her work’s beauty and simplicity. It becomes an eloquent and focused exploration of nature’s complex dualities – fragility and resistance, weightlessness and density, stillness and turbulence. ■

Sarah Stevenson’s exhibition, Nothing Hidden, is on view at the Esker Foundation in Calgary from Sept. 22 to Dec. 21, 2018. It runs concurrently with exhibitions by Agnes Martin, The mind knows what the eye has not seen, and Tammi Campbell, Dear Agnes, who also use gridded forms in their work.

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