L.L. Contemporary is pleased to present Out of Sight, Out of Mind, a solo exhibition by Zhan Zhang, whose work explores the delicate interplay between visibility, memory, and cultural identity through the evocative medium of paper.
Using scissors to “draw” lines, through intricate sculptural techniques, Zhang investigates what we choose to perceive and thus remember, and what we allow to be unseen and forgotten. In a time when cultural narratives are often rewritten or erased, these sculptures stand as tactile symbols to hidden stories and silenced voices.
The exhibition features the artist’s works from the past two years, including installations, soft sculptures, and video. Visually innovative and enjoyable, the loose works can be freely reorganized, offering endless possibilities. Though in futuristic sculptural forms, each piece carries a backstory rooted in Zhang’s lived experience and heritage. Some works are inspired by childhood memories, while others respond to broader issues such as migration, displacement, and identity. Zhang’s meticulous approach results in personalized works that are simultaneously airy and architectural, ephemeral and enduring.
The title Out of Sight, Out of Mind reflects a central theme in Zhang’s practice: the fragility of remembrance and perception in both physical and conceptual contexts. Do meanings cease to exist when not seen or heard again and again? Are humans truly wired to perceive reality correctly? Will the body remember those without the brain’s interference? Could something exist, but humans don't realize it is there simply because they don't have the corresponding organs of perception?
This exhibition invites audiences to slow down and look more closely, to perceive and to forget, and to reconsider what lies beyond the surface, reminding us that what is out of sight may not always be out of mind.
About the Artist
Zhan Zhang is a Toronto-based visual artist known for her freehand cut-paper sculptures that have a fragile and otherworldly quality to them. In the same way of “line drawing”, paper cutting is broken into the smallest unit in the art medium - the cuts - an attempt to place this often dismissed form and material in a broader cultural context, and to reimagine the function of these tactile practices in the contemporary environment of information overload and collective memories.
Zhang's art embodies delicacy and precision, in which valid reality is replaced with strange combinations of objects and events. The paper, though seemingly intact, is strewn with scarred lines that respond spontaneously and naturally to the artist's hands.
The visually transformative structures constantly distort in response to the light: animate and inanimate intertwine. The distorted forms create a space to experience the dreams and the unconscious, to experience the loneliness, the confusion, and the divinity in a single glance, and question the reality surrounding us.
Zhang graduated with an Honours B.A., double majoring in Visual Arts and Arts Management, from the University of Toronto, and followed with graduate studies in 3D Animation at Seneca College.
For more information contact the gallery owner, Sophie Lu
- 905-771-0928
- [email protected]
- www.llcontemporary.com
The event is Free
