03 Sep 2015

Sandra Meigs: All to All at Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto

Sandra Meigs: All to All

All things, all life, all beings, all energy, all effort, all virtue, all extremes, all circumstances, all creations, all competition, all plans, all else: All to All.

In Sandra Meigs' upcoming exhibition, 'All to All', everything that is the individual is also everything that is possible in the Universe. There is nothing. There is everything. Time exceeds space. Space is infinitely immense while particles of matter are tremendously tiny. All life requires energy. Energy is activated and attracted from anywhere.
'All to All' is prolific in individual forms. All are round. Each form performs a distinct function. In unison they work together to raise the space's amplitude. The ten 'Mystics', large paintings on canvas, are present to convey possible conditions, frozen as image. 'The Elevators', one hundred and fifty small paintings on paper arranged in groups of five give us a lift up. They tell us we work too hard: take it easy, EZ. Six chiming 'un-clocks' mark the existence of time but do not tell it, they demonstrate that time is relative. Six rotating cookie containers make a racket of noise —literally tin— they initiate resonance on the cheap. Eighteen grey EGO disks that come in small, medium, and large, link back to the day-to-day structure of our lives – binding us to the ho-hum changeless sameness. Three of 'The Bones in Golden Robes' —self-activating robotic spectres— spin in circles. Even while shrouded in anonymity, their revolving presence bears witness.

Every day, in order to activate the artwork, the building, and the people within it, the artist will practice the Chau gong for fifteen-minutes. The vibration generated resembles NASA's recordings of waves of sound that flow to us from deep space.

Sandra Meigs was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1953. She holds a BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (1975) and an MA in Philosophy from Dalhousie University (1980). Her work has been exhibited at the Ydessa Hendeles Foundation, Toronto; the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; The Power Plant, Toronto; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Saidye Bronfman Centre, Montréal; the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, Montréal; Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa; and Open Space, Victoria. She has recently participated in group exhibitions at Museum London, London, Ontario; West Vancouver Museum, Vancouver; The Power Plant, Toronto; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; and the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto. She currently lives in Victoria, BC, where she is a professor in the Visual Arts department at the University of Victoria. Last spring Meigs received the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Art.