Kal Mansur: group of one at Lustre Contemporary
Kal Mansur, Future Summary Twenty, 2025, 32 x 32 inches, Acrylic and plexiglass.
Kal Mansur: group of one
Solo Exhibition
November 6 – 28, 2026
Lustre Contemporary, Toronto
Artwork Preview
Opening Reception: Thursday, November 5, 6 – 9pm
To RSVP, please email mail@lustre.art
Artist-led Tour & Conversation: Saturday, November 7, 2 – 5pm
Lustre Contemporary presents group of one, Kal Mansur’s first solo exhibition in two years. The exhibition brings together distinct bodies of painting and sculpture that have evolved alongside one another in his Toronto studio. Working across acrylic, resin, plexiglass, cord, and rope, Mansur carries ideas from one medium into another. Compositions are built and revised, with elements from one series finding their way into the next.
Across these works, angles and proportions recall the structures of everyday urban life. Abstracted from buildings and other constructed forms, they retain a familiarity even when their sources are difficult to place. Mansur’s objects can appear foreign and recognizable at once, as though they belong to a future that already bears traces of our past.
This tension extends to the experience of looking. His acrylic sculptures can initially register as flat compositions, their depth becoming apparent as the viewer moves alongside them. Colour appears within the work, becoming visible from certain angles and disappearing from others. Translucent materials reveal portions of a construction while obscuring others. In his paintings, texture and directional marks alter how surfaces catch the light. Cord and rope give line a physical presence, establishing angles and intervals in actual space.
Kal Mansur, When Will You – 072226, 2026, 21 x 48 inches, Shock cord, rope, resin, walnut frame.
Mansur’s use of industrial materials has affinities with Donald Judd’s minimalism, while his treatment of light and colour connects with the perceptual concerns of Light and Space and the expressive colour of Abstract Expressionism. These inheritances meet a more personal concern with visibility. Informed by the immigrant experience, his works return to conditions of being veiled, obscured, or only partly revealed. Familiar forms offer points of recognition, while aspects of the work remain elusive. What can be seen depends on the position from which it is approached.
The title group of one makes a quiet reference to the Group of Seven. Here, the differences among the works emerge from one artist’s sustained engagement with an evolving set of ideas. Across the exhibition a family resemblance emerges, as much in what the works withhold as in what they reveal.
Kal Mansur, Still-Life Paradigm Two, 2026, 46 x 46 inches, Resin, plexiglass, and acrylic.
About Kal Mansur
Kal Mansur is a Toronto-based artist whose work spans painting, sculpture, and large-scale commissions. Working with acrylic, resin, plexiglass, and other industrial materials, he creates geometric compositions that complicate the relationship between surface and depth. Colours emerge and disappear with changes in light and perspective; forms that appear flat reveal their physical dimensions as the viewer moves. Beneath their precise construction, the works retain an element of ambiguity.
Mansur’s work has been exhibited in Toronto, New York, London, Los Angeles, Ottawa, and the Netherlands, and was featured at the Canada Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai. His work is held in corporate and institutional collections including TD Bank, Global Affairs Canada, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, George Brown College, and Toronto Metropolitan University.
His commissioned projects for Tiffany & Co., Le Méridien New York, Conrad Los Angeles, Hines/Tridel’s Aqualuna, Sammarco Toronto, Bonjour Capital, and Fairmont Hotels extend his explorations of colour, form, and material into public and private spaces.
About Lustre Contemporary
Lustre Contemporary’s new 3,000-square-foot gallery at 150 Sterling Road presents a focused program of emerging and mid-career artists, with an emphasis on contemporary Canadian painting, mixed media practices, and photography. Through exhibitions in Toronto and active participation in international art fairs, Lustre supports the growth and visibility of its artists within Canada and internationally.
Lustre Contemporary
150 Sterling Road, Unit 1
Toronto, ON M6R 0C6
lustre.art
mail@lustre.art
647-493-2866
Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 11am – 6pm
Accessibility: Lustre Contemporary is fully accessible, with automatic entrance doors, wide and unobstructed pathways throughout the gallery, and an accessible washroom.
