We are very pleased to present a solo exhibition with new works by Nils Erik Gjerdevik. The exhibition consists of four new large-scale paintings as well as a drawing installation. The works in the show are all characterized by Gjerdevik's consistent investigations of the potential of abstraction. The paintings contain a myriad of details and a graphic expression typical of Gjerdevik's earlier praxis but simultaneously they reveal an element of expressive wildness marking a new beginning in his work.
The graphic elements in the new paintings express an organic force and the system is not always easily decoded when shapes arise and branch out on the canvas. The spontaneity is, however, always subject to a formal system suspended between the playful and controlled.
In a large orange painting that holds a central position in the show, a wave curves across the canvas. From a distance the composition seems fairly simple and comprehensible, but from a closer viewpoint it reveals a myriad of details. By letting an apparently simple form, the wave, act as the framework for endless possibilities and details, Gjerdevik points to the complexity of the formal approach.
In two black paintings the decoding of the works takes place in an interaction between the black surface and the underlying luminous colors - an experience stretched between the positive and the negative depending on ones focus on either the colors or the blackness. In the correlation of color and blackness Gjerdevik stresses the inherent light in the dark or black. The black paintings are made in a process in which the colors are applied as the first layer. Afterwards the black top layer is applied in a carefully planned manner allowing the bottom layers of color to appear in detailed patterns and lines. This technique does not leave room for retouching and is thus highly demanding in terms of both planning and execution.
Nils Erik Gjerdevik is known for his non-figurative paintings, works on paper, and sculptures that simultaneously scrutinize and push the limits of the conventions they are subject to. His praxis can be characterized as a conceptual investigation of the very preconditions of the existence and potential of the respective media. The works of Gjerdevik are created in a constant dialogue with the art historical tradition, as his use of e.g. the linear structures of constructivism, the arabesques of art nouveau, or the grid formations of minimal art form the core of his works and at the same time are challenged and taken up to revision.
Nils Erik Gjerdevik has two other upcoming solo exhibitions at Kunsthallen Brandts in Odense from 12.08.2012 - 27.01.2013 and at the Utzon Center in Ålborg from 20.06 - 30.08 2013.
Miriam Bäckström
We are very pleased to present Miriam Bäckströms works 'Mirrors' in our exhibition space Mellemrummet.
The exhibition consists of a series of photographic portraits of different characters, both real and fictive, in combination with mirrors surrounding the individual photographs
Miriam Bäckström's works are often characterized by an investigation of the boundaries of the established reality. Her works often place themselves in a conceptual discussion about t the works' status in our consciousness. In recent years the actor has been a central figure in Bäckström's artistic practice and has formed the backdrop for a discussion about the meaning of 'I' and its relation to concepts such as the role, the character, the figure, and identity as such.
These concepts are also the point of departure in the 'Mirror'-series that displays what Bäckström herself coins 'images of portraits of characters'. In spite of their serial character the works can all be viewed as isolated works. Each portrait concentrates on its individual model and there are different things at stake in each portrait: some portray real persons, other fictive characters, whilst other still displays persons who take on another character than their own. Some of the works put the portrayed in dialogue with their surrounding space whilst we only sense it in others.
By using the mirror as a central tool or effect in the portrait situation Miriam Bäckström brings focus on, and problematizes, the identity of the portrayed, as the viewer and the other works in the series are reflected in the mirrors and thus become an integral part of each work. By blurring the border between the work and the viewer's reality our perception of the image (and of the portrayed) as a closed and established unit is disturbed. The duality of the image and the mirror are combined in Bäckström's 'Mirrors' and this correlation stresses an immanent ambiguity in the works: namely what is the difference between a character, a role, and a figure, between person and personality, between the I and the representation of the I? How do we distinguish, and what is the purpose of such a distinction?
In 'Mirrors' these concepts and different layers of reality are played out against each other in a complex discussion of identity and the roles we take on and surround ourselves with in our everyday lives. These issues are continuous subjects in Bäckström's artistic project that since the photographic series 'Set Constructions' and Museums, Collections and Reconstructions' from the mid-nineties has held focus on the staging of our lives and the layers that exist between the division of fiction and reality.
