ULTRA-PARALLEL
Toronto artist Kristiina Lahde alters and re-formats ordinary objects and materials through a process of geometric re-organization in which measurement and pattern play a significant role.
Finding the overlooked potential of envelopes, newspapers, telephone books and measuring tapes, Lahde manipulates and de-familiarizes them in ways that shift, expand, invert, or otherwise transform their internal logic. Recently, she has been systematically re-formatting measuring tools, cutting and reconfiguring measuring tapes and rulers using precise measurements, geometric shapes and patterns.
For ULTRA-PARALLEL, her solo exhibition at the Koffler Gallery, Lahde expands her work to a large scale and into the use of three-dimensional space. The new body of work engages with the architecture of the site, investigating tension, gravity, angles, parallel lines and crossing perspectives.
Working with primary geometric forms – square, circle, triangle, cube, sphere, pyramid – Lahde reimagines elementary shapes and objects that attempt to mediate our relationship with and understanding of the physical world, serving as tools for empirical exploration. However, by highlighting the process of their making and subjecting them to unusual situations, Lahde’s works reveal both the structure and collapse of their functionality. Succumbing to gravity, her playfully compromised objects create new tensions within the architectural space.
