In photography and furniture design, Alison Postma finds beauty in the unexpected | Canada Voices

For multidisciplinary artist Alison Postma, there’s an excitement in navigating how objects made and found can take on new character when they’re captured in images. With a practice that spans still-life photos and sculptural furniture designs, Postma’s oeuvre frames everything from humble materials to meticulously crafted housewares as objects that deserve reverence. On May 10, it all comes together in the Contact Photography Festival exhibition Tender to the Touch in Toronto.

“If I were to sum up the themes in my work in a single word, it would be ‘dreams,’” Postma says. “I feel like that idea can expand into so many other things. And when I say dreams, I mean the feeling of being in a dream, the kind of confusion or fogginess or tension that’s not totally explainable. With most things that I have done through my art, I’m trying to capture that feeling.”

Much like artists in the Dada and Fluxus movements, Postma relies on unexpected ingredients. After finishing a degree at the University of Guelph in studio art, Postma didn’t have a lot of physical room to be creative. “I was working with found objects around me, and things that weren’t going to take up a ton of space in terms of what the finished art piece would be, as well as what I was working with,” Postma says. This moved the artist toward focusing on what is necessary. “I’ve always loved objects,” says Postma, who grew up in Toronto and is still based in the city. “This is definitely influenced by my parents and their sentimentality about keeping things.”

Postma’s playful still-life photos are imbued with a sense of ephemerality. “If there’s a really beautiful piece of garbage, I don’t necessarily want to be keeping that around, but its beauty deserves to be seen,” Postma says. “When photographed in the best light, an object can have beautiful qualities that maybe are just visual and not physical.”

Postma has continued to expand their skill set, graduating last spring from the furniture design program at Sheridan College in Mississauga, Ont. Throughout their studies, Postma created a number of exceptional prototypes, including the clever Kissing Chair (an S-shaped two-seater with chairs in opposing directions nestled closely side-by-side), and a sublime mid-century-coded credenza boasting a bold ombré sliding door, which, when opening and closing, resembles the crackling photographic effect of reticulation. Postma’s Knob Chair, with a back and seat covered in an array of wooden bulbs, was a showstopper at Toronto’s Interior Design Show in January.

This furniture is on display during the Contact photo exhibition, which takes place at the Xpace Cultural Centre until July 5. When asked how all the elements of their practice connect, Postma brings the show up as a notable experiment in boundless intersectionality. “I’m still figuring it out,” Postma says of the far-reaching mediums with which they work. “But the show is a step in the direction of answering, ‘how do all these things fit together?’”

For more, visit alisonpostma.ca and contactphoto.com.