Kal Mansur (Canadian, b. 1965) works within abstraction, making a case for its plural nature. He has created distinct bodies of work that remain grounded in a shared experience of distance – between viewer and object, place and memory, between what is present and what resists meaning. While referencing minimalist traditions, his use of colour gestures elsewhere: toward places remembered more by atmosphere than name – the saturated light of his South Asian childhood, a desert in Texas, the shifting shadows between buildings in New York.
“I use my work to tune visual perception,” he says. “Its non-definitive nature allows it to vibrate like a tuning fork. The observer decides whether what they see is in or out of tune.”
Born in Chittagong in 1965 and raised on an air force base, Mansur experienced the upheaval of the 1971 war that led to the creation of Bangladesh. In 1975, his family settled in Toronto. He later studied painting at the University of Texas, where he received his BFA in 1990. There, Peter Saul offered a formative piece of advice: waste as much paint as you use. It is a lesson Mansur continues to take seriously – abundance and restraint, held in tension.
Mansur’s work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in Toronto, New York, Ottawa, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and Doetinchem. His works were exhibited at the Canada Pavilion at Expo Dubai 2020. He has been commissioned by Tiffany & Co., Le Méridien New York, Sammarco Toronto, Hines Tridel Aqualuna, the Conrad Los Angeles, Bonjour Capital, and Fairmont Hotels. Institutions such as George Brown College and Toronto Metropolitan University have acquired and installed his work in public-facing spaces. His pieces form part of the collections of Global Affairs Canada, TD Bank, Memorial Sloan Kettering, Alliance Capital, and Senvest Corporation. He lives and works in Toronto.
Toronto studio, 2018
