Transparent Landscapes, at Atelier des Bains in Geneva in 2014, was Thomas Canto’s first exhibition devoted entirely to his three-dimensional work. Extending his research on urban architecture and perspective, his lines left the canvas to create works halfway between painting and sculpture.

Meticulously painted canvases are crossed by taut cables and held in Plexiglas boxes, which multiply the levels of reading. The shadows of the cables draw new geometries that change with the light and the viewing angle. The series brings together the dynamism of graffiti, the radical compositions of Constructivism and Suprematism, and the visual effects of Op Art.

For his third exhibition at Matthew Liu Fine Arts in Shanghai, in 2023, Thomas Canto set the architecture of his work in dialogue with the geometric abstraction of the twentieth-century avant-gardes. Le Corbusier was the central figure: an architect and painter whose Modulor relates the proportions of the human body to built space.

Among his works of that year, Modulor Expansion refers directly to this system. The same year, he created Metropolitan Harmony at the gallery, a site-specific wall installation of suspended volumes, geometric tracings and reflective materials.

Etherealities, Thomas Canto’s solo show with Volery Gallery in Dubai in 2022, grew out of a dialogue with the gallery’s owner, Rom Levy. The project led the artist to settle in the region, so that the works could be developed in the city they address: Dubai, its perspectives, its reflections and its constant expansion.

Two series faced each other. Black-and-white paintings, named after real places, drew on photographs of megacities to question the globalisation of architecture. Coloured sculptures in cut stainless steel from the Structural Reflections series set a figurative front against an abstract back of endless reflections, leaving each viewer to set the city in motion by choosing a point of view.

For the Art Meets Life programme in Tokyo, Thomas Canto took over the public areas of Seibu Sogo Shibuya at the end of 2019, following artists such as Kohei Nawa, Haroshi and Madsaki. Structural Reverberations linked the interior of the building to the skyscrapers and crosswalks of Shibuya outside.

The installation translates the experience of walking through a dense urban environment. Its many reflections mix visitors with the surrounding city until familiar landmarks dissolve.

Chiasma, Thomas Canto’s solo show at Matthew Liu Fine Arts in Shanghai in 2019, presented new works drawn from urban architecture. In Structural Reflections, Expanded Limits and Interconnected Dimensions, he cut his geometric patterns into electroplated, laser-cut mirror steel, so that light passes through and reflects from within.

The Urban Symphony series sets painted mirror-steel strips of varying lengths along the wall, like a music equaliser that also evokes the skylines of Hong Kong, London, New York, Tokyo and Shanghai. Monochrome works such as Circular Reflections layer white nylon threads over white or black acrylic. For Canto, the viewer completes each work.

Temporal Geometries was Thomas Canto’s first solo exhibition in Germany, held at Bermel von Luxburg Gallery in Berlin in 2018. It brought together a selection of Cubicles, wall sculptures from several series developed over the preceding years: hand-painted panels set within acrylic glass frames, crossed by stretched nylon threads.

Within these confined volumes, line, shadow and transparency produce optical effects that shift with the viewer’s position, the same questions of space and movement that drive his immersive installations, compressed to the scale of the object. The show followed a group exhibition there earlier that year; the gallery then presented his work at Luxembourg Art Week, Cologne Art Fair, Positions Berlin and Art Karlsruhe.

Structuring Shadows was Thomas Canto’s solo exhibition at RX Gallery in Paris in February 2017. For it he created a site-specific installation: a suspended sculptural structure, partly painted and partly transparent, set against a sharply contrasting geometric wall mural.

Through a precise interplay of light and shadow, the piece questions the limits of architectural perception and the way we read built space. The show opened days after Illusory Perspectives closed at the Centre Pompidou.

Illusory Perspectives was an immersive installation created by Thomas Canto for Studio 13/16 at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the museum’s space for teenagers. It was on view until January 2017, with workshops built around the work.

Painted surfaces, taut lines and mirror structures combine into a fragmented geometry that unsettles spatial perception. Reflections and optical illusion break up the architecture of the room, and the work asks visitors to move and reposition themselves to read it.

Extended Horizons was presented in a pop-up exhibition curated by Castanier Gallery in the Wynwood Arts District of Miami, during Art Basel Miami, and remained on view until the end of January.

The mixed-media installation combines geometric wall painting, suspended elements and a dynamic lighting set-up. As the light shifts, shadow and spatial tension redraw the surrounding architecture, and the work changes with the viewer’s position. It continued Canto’s work with the gallery, which had shown him in Los Angeles in 2013.

Gravitational Transparencies was Thomas Canto’s solo exhibition at Matthew Liu Fine Arts in Shanghai, from May to July 2016. Its title work, a site-specific installation, stretched an intricate web of suspended lines and mirrored volumes across the gallery.

Its semi-transparent structure oscillates between density and void, using light and shadow to test the physical limits of space, gravity and reflection. Matthew Liu Fine Arts has since presented his work at fairs in Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen, and devoted two further solo shows to him, Chiasma in 2019 and Architectural Harmonies in 2023.