From Agnostic Objects

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Agnostic Objects by Daniel Laskarin
Truck
Friday, February 22 - Saturday, March 22

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Truck

There is a distinct sense of tranquility permeating Truck Gallery. Thanks to Daniel Laskarin’s current sculptural installation, it’s a quality amplified by the fact that the last two exhibitions in this gallery space, Justin Waddell’s psychedelic White Rabbit and Levin Haegele’s Smokescreens, were video-based shows that relied heavily on sound and motion.

Replacing these projected videos are seven sculptures that rest precariously on the floor of the white room. The works are comprised of a few disparate materials and found objects carefully selected and arranged by the Victoria-based artist, often with great poetic results. Tainted candy and glossy white colours coat what appears to be the nucleus of each work, which usually takes the shape of a flattened geometric form resembling furniture, a box or some kind of wooden structure. The secondary components support, cover or slice the work’s central part, a spatial intrusion that accentuates the differing visual qualities of each element.

For the artist, “materials always carry meaning, from their industrial source, from the things we associate them with, from their physical properties, from the way that they've been handled, or from the history of the particular material. I'm aware of these meanings, and a consciousness of them is an important part of the work. At the same time, I'm not interested in symbolic meaning, as in ‘this material stands for my relationship with my mother,’ or something like that.”

One of the most striking sculptures from the exhibition, Packing the Fleece and Trapping Owls, faces the viewer as he or she enters the room. The work is supported by a short metal stand from which hangs a thick blue blanket commonly used for moving and packing furniture. The manner in which the edge of the blanket has been deliberately laid on the floor, in addition to the fabric’s colour and its undulating stitching pattern, poetically evokes gushing water. Almost concealed in the head of the blanket is an odd, wax-like form. Lying against the side of the blanket is perhaps the only physically manipulated material of the assemblage. Like a glossy, white 3D reproduction of the perspective-defying furniture famously depicted in paintings by Cézanne, Picasso and Braque, a deconstructed chair and table seem to float against its soft, blue background.

The struggle between the figurative and the abstract in each one of Laskarin’s works is reflected in their assigned titles, such as Make the Horse Eat Slowly and As If with Moonlight. Laskarin candidly reveals that these descriptive yet puzzling titles have been gleaned from the works’ inspirational sources. “For five of the works in the show, I began with drawings of mostly 19th century farm devices that I found in a reproduction of an early 20th century book. I was interested in bringing the sometimes-awkward drawings back into a 3D form [and also in] the way that all representation changes things. For the first five works, the titles come right from the book. In several cases, I just literally excerpted section headings, but in a couple, I shifted things around a bit. The last two works are quotes from Samuel Beckett: one from his play Happy Days and another from his directions to the players in Waiting for Godot.”

One of Laskarin’s most recently completed works, It Will Have Been… So Far, did not use drawings of farming equipment as a jumping off point and clearly indicates a new artistic direction taken by the artist. The firmly grounded, straight-angled composition is sturdier, more abstract than the others, and none of its surfaces is veiled in paint. Framed by a rectangular sheet of cut-up Kraft paper hung on the wall behind it, the work’s tall and slim metallic pedestal displays two objects: a metallic measuring tape and a tiny white cube sitting on a clock mechanism that slowly and playfully makes it turn and tick with each passing second.

While interesting, knowing the inspiration behind Laskarin’s sculptural compositions is unnecessary to visually appreciate the works. They all successfully exist in the shared space as independent and unique entities, even without the help of its descriptive title or a background on its conception. Each work tells its own story with the found objects and materials from which it was created, and all the elements that it employs have been carefully manipulated to become indispensable components of that unspoken narrative.