Form and Void

Nashid Chroma presents a series of sculptures made from laser-cut plywood frameworks wrapped in saree fabric.

Each piece starts as a form modelled on the computer. Chroma, who trained in both fine art and architecture, breaks that form into a grid of interlocking birch ribs, then cuts, assembles and stains the pieces by hand. He then stretches and pleats saree fabric across parts of the frame and leaves other parts bare. Some of the sarees are sheer, so the underlying frame shows through.

The fabric comes from Nucreation Fashions on Gerrard Street East, a shop he has visited with his family since he was a child. A saree is made to move with a body. Here it is pulled tight over a rigid frame, so it takes on shapes it was never meant to hold.

For Chroma, the underlying frame stands for memory. The form is drawn as a perfectly smooth surface, and then most of the ribs are removed. The gaps are what has been forgotten, and the few ribs left are what holds the shape up. The curved forms suggest hills, waves and water without showing any real place, a nod to the distance his parents travelled from Bangladesh to Canada.

The works will be floor-mounted and wall-mounted in the Youngplace Hallway Galleries. Look closely and you can parse what is fabric and what is structure, what was made by machine and what was folded by hand, and where the two don’t quite meet.