In the Studio with Laurie Kang by Brittany Shepherd from Canadian Art.
In Toronto-based artist Laurie Kang’s studio, you’ll find surfaces littered with debris that feels a little bit primordial and a little bit post-apocalyptic. Desiccated orange peels and stone-fruit pits are strewn among lumps of molten metal, twisted ropes of polymer clay, plastic tubes, sticky gels and silicone moulds of eggs. A length of wire curls like a tendril around a putty-coloured piece of silicone that looks like a flap of skin. These are the discarded materials from Kang’s explorations in photography, sculpture and installation.
Kang is interested in a deliberate misuse of materials, and in disrupting established structures. She takes photography out of the darkroom, exposing light-sensitive photo paper to the uncontrolled whims of natural daylight, and often combines and confines matter that feels organic, or related to the body, with rigid, metallic sculptural elements.
Kang completed a BFA at Concordia University and an MFA at Bard College. Her work has been shown in Toronto at Franz Kaka, the Loon, the Power Plant and other venues, and internationally at venues including In Limbo in Brooklyn, LVL3 Gallery in Chicago and Vårberg Sweden.
In this studio visit by Canadian Art’s video intern, Brittany Shepherd, Kang provides a look into her studio and a visit to her recent solo exhibition.
