Stances

During the lockdown period, the value of physical presence and materiality was uncertain. How to create and make public a graduation work without a physical encounter? The sculptural qualities and weighty presence of the sculptures and objects I had been making till then seemed essential qualities that would now be translated into pixels and reproduced through light on a computer’s screen.

I experimented with cut-outs, using printed reproductions of a very specific painting; Willful Excess (1977) by Christina Ramberg as material. Looking at this painting had stirred many questions regarding the body as a physical, bounded entity. Ramberg’s work seems to instil negotiation, though the invitation is delivered through stark postures.

What started out as an experiment – slightly reminiscent of puzzle obsessions simultaneously occurring in many homes – became a reconfiguring of the figure-ground relationship challenging my own stance toward the digital realm. As the cut outs came from an A4 print, the digital manipulation of paper collages influenced the pieces greatly. Exposure adjustments and upscaling gives these uncertain bodies a texture and a distant presence .