CYBÈLE YOUNG at Edward Day Gallery (952 Queen West) to August 5. 416-921-6540. Rating: NNNNN
Cybèle Young’s miniature paper sculptures will shake up your perspective on art in this city.
Like the sculptures themselves, the show is petite but strikes you with its remarkable beauty and freshness.
These works combine novel aesthetics in sculpture with Young’s profound skills in printmaking on Japanese paper. The show’s centrepiece, Conservation, is a series of tiny paper sculptures featuring small prints of reptiles caught in glass jars, wooden toys, bikinis, swimming goggles and down jackets, all mounted on colourful branches. Suspended from the twigs like leaves or wind chimes, the hanging shapes evoke a sweet sensation of childhood nostalgia.
Across from this work are a pair of windshield wipers titled These Don’t Work. Made from newsprint, they shift attention away from the show’s predominant decorative quality.
Young’s ability to reimagine seemingly mundane objects through superior craftsmanship and an ironic sense of humour creates a universe of wonder and everyday magic. I’ll Be Under Here, a miniature grandma-style couch crafted of Japanese paper with frightening precision exemplifies her quirky sensibility.
Marvellously obsessive, Young succeeds in capturing fragile moments of wonder, just one example of the extraordinary state of the Toronto art scene at the moment. This show inspires the eye and the body to experience the world differently.
