Introduction

Encompassing work in sculpture, collage, installation and other media, Mexican-born, Brussels-based artist Gabriel Kuri frequently uses repurposed materials—natural, industrial and otherwise—to link questions of form with larger conversations surrounding how commodities are valued, circulated and assigned function. Inspired as readily by the principles of minimalism as by material histories, Kuri's works highlight the contingent and vernacular life of a given material or object alongside its more rational or systematic utility.

For his first solo exhibition in Canada, Kuri presents a new site-specific installation that recasts the architecture of Oakville Galleries' Centennial Square space, creating a static field to contain the gallery's energy use during the run of the show. Accompanied by two new sculptural works that translate the details of this intervention into form, Kuri's gesture not only sets into motion a system that regulates an exchange of energy, money and labour, but it also functions as a looping proposition: an occasion that speaks about its occurrence, a space that assesses space, a possibility that reflects on possibility.