Presence Between Forms, Arien Cirell and Riven Sorrin*
OpenFrame, Toronto | November 5 – December 31, 2024
Curated by Tanya Shraifel
"Presence Between Forms" explores the creative meeting of contemporary art, photography, and sculpture. Arien Cirell and Riven Sorrin were invited to share the gallery space at OpenFrame and build a project together, responding to each other's work and the feel, shape, and ideas within the space itself.
The works create a shared dialogue of spatiality and touch. The interior photographs depict domestic environments with functional furniture, sofas, chairs, and tables that invite rest and being present. The black-and-white images capture everyday interior spaces, corners, light on walls, and forgotten moments—not as staged compositions but as careful observations offering a slowed-down rhythm of seeing. Each photograph draws the viewer into a familiar, slightly distant space, like a memory reappearing without context.
The geometric concrete installation, positioned centrally in the gallery as a sculptural anchor, continues this dialogue. Its minimal form echoes the lines and angles of the furniture in the photographs. Like the sofas and chairs captured on film, the installation offers a point of contact, a place to lean or sit, blurring the line between artwork and functional space.
Arien Cirell is a Toronto-based photographer who investigates spatial memory through analog black-and-white processes. Her practice is centered on working with film and darkroom techniques, emphasizing slowness, light, and the tactile qualities of photographic material. In Presence Between Forms, her photographs consider the poetics of domestic space and the emotional resonance of the overlooked.
Riven Sorrin is a sculptor based in Montreal whose work explores the architectural and emotional potential of untreated materials, mainly concrete. His sculptures often serve as propositions for engagement, physical, visual, and spatial. For this exhibition, Lin's geometric form creates a physical pause, offering viewers a moment of rest that echoes the stillness in Markel's imagery.
OpenFrame is a contemporary art space situated in an urban neighborhood in Toronto. Known for its commitment to process-driven and cross-disciplinary work, the gallery provides a clean, minimal architectural context that foregrounds the practices it hosts. Founded by a collective of artists and curators, OpenFrame fosters collaboration and experimentation, supporting projects that question conventional exhibition models. It has quietly become a vital space for artists seeking to engage in nuanced, critical, and materially sensitive dialogues.
*This project is a conceptual exploration of exhibition-making, created to examine curatorial approaches. All names, artworks, and institutions mentioned are fictional. The exhibition exists as a creative exercise, not as a realized event.