The Relationships Between Material and Space

Spotlight on artist Rachael Wong and her installation for DesignTO 2026

Preview of Dollhouse / Architectural Model and Fabricated Landscape, installed at LightForm Toronto for 2026 DesignTO Festival

Rachael Wong’s work lives in the space between object and experience. Working within sculpture, glass, and drawing, her practice explores how materials and spatial relationships shape the way we see and assign meaning to the world around us.

Born in Scotland to a Scottish mother and Guyanese father, the Toronto-based artist grew up in Calgary before pursuing a BFA in Glass at what is now Alberta University of the Arts. Her practice has taken her from residencies at Harbourfront Centre and the Living Arts Centre to completing an MFA in Sculpture and Dimensional Studies at Alfred University in New York. Despite working all over the world and with different mediums, she has continually found her way back to Toronto, where her practice continues to evolve.

Rachael describes her inspiration as coming equally from material exploration and by observing the everyday:

“I am inspired by making and material as well as by day to day life,” she shares. “Both in terms of the visual landscape and the structures and systems underneath human experience… I go from drawings to objects and back again, thinking of what’s happening in my life and how these parts inform one another.”

In Dollhouse / Architectural Model and Fabricated Landscape (now on view at LightForm Toronto), scale, pattern, and spatial relationships are central. She invites viewers to slow down and consider how meaning shifts through placement and context.

For Rachael, placement and orientation can dramatically alter how a piece is read, not just on its own, but in conversation with the elements around it. A shift in position can change how a viewer connects emotionally. Rachael is particularly interested in how individual elements relate to one another and how meaning unfolds over time.

This sensitivity to context extends to her use of materials. Glass, drawing, and fabricated elements carry associations that shift depending on how and where they are encountered.

Large plywood works in her series Fabricated Landscape, for example, reference construction hoarding and sandwich boards, while also evoking abstracted symbols of infrastructure such as the sun, water, and gas lines. These layered references invite viewers to question value, utility, and symbolism all at once.

Lighting Affects How We Perceive

Light plays a critical role in Rachael’s work. Rather than treating lighting as an afterthought, she considers it an active collaborator. It is something that can sharpen an idea or destabilize it entirely.

“Lighting can focus an idea or confuse it,” she notes. “Lighting can emphasize value and preciousness... Depending on the piece, light can showcase the form, even shape the installation, direct where shadows lie… and dictate placement and connection.”

Working primarily with glass means light is always present in the conversation. Surface treatments, whether matte or polished, translucent or opaque, are often adjusted in anticipation of how light will interact with the material. These choices directly affect how viewers perceive not only form and colour, but also their emotional associations with glass itself.

Rachael is particularly interested in what light can draw attention to, especially when it highlights something small, subtle, or easily overlooked. In this way, light becomes a means of assigning importance. It asks the viewers to slow down and invites closer looking.

Rachael’s Art at LightForm Toronto

Preview of Dollhouse / Architectural Model and Fabricated Landscape, installed at LightForm Toronto for 2026 DesignTO Festival

Bringing Rachael’s works to LightForm Toronto was an opportunity to push her ideas beyond individual objects and into a fully considered spatial experience.

“It was amazing to be granted a space to push an idea beyond the original concept.”

The installation process encouraged Rachael to think differently about scale, sequencing, and how works speak to one another within a designed environment. And of course, lighting played a decisive role in shaping the final outcome.

Working and sharing the space with LightForm fixtures, particularly the Tekiò Lights by Santa & Cole and Davide Groppi’s Endless System, Rachael was influenced not only by the placement of pieces, but also what was highlighted and what receded into the background. Shadows became compositional elements in their own right. They shaped connections between works and guided movement through the space.

This transformation is something many collectors and designers recognize when living with art. A work viewed in a gallery under one lighting condition may feel entirely different in a home, where light shifts throughout the day and across seasons. Rachael embraces this variability, seeing it not as a loss of control, but as an extension of the work itself.

When lighting her work, she likes to focus on small details: the brilliance of colour, the repetition of patterns, and the connections between elements. She is deeply interested in how viewers move through space, encountering her work from multiple angles and under changing light conditions. This mirrors how layered lighting reveals different moods within a room.

For Rachael, this ever-changing quality is essential. Nothing is fixed. There is always another way to see, another perspective to consider.

At its core, Dollhouse / Architectural Model and Fabricated Landscape are about perception. Her works examine how materials and spatial hierarchies influence meaning. Light, Rachael believes, plays a powerful role in shaping that meaning.

“Light and space can give meaning through value and placement,” she explains. “It can change how we feel about something, whether it’s embraced or discarded.”

When asked if she had insight to share with designers and fellow artists about lighting art, whether in galleries or interiors, her answer was simple yet profound. Consider not just how much light you use, but what kind of light, and where it is placed. Every decision carries intention, and every choice shapes the story being told.