- Slut dato: 2023-06-03
Galleri NB, Viborg
29.04.-03.06.2023
NBeX project: Nana RHB: The Girl With Many Eyes
MAIN gallery: John Reuss: Reuss -23
It is not without reason that Gallery NB's upcoming exhibition is open longer than usual, as the two artists' individual exhibitions are very different, but both super exciting.
Nana RHB
With the exhibition The Girl With Many Eyes, Nana RHB presents new paintings, collages and smaller paper works, where she creates a space for reflection on the ambivalent meanings and symbolism of the eyes.
Eyes are often considered a window to the soul and can symbolize a close connection to one's inner self or a high degree of attention to one's surroundings. At the same time, eyes can also represent surveillance and censorship and act as a comment on the increased surveillance and control in society.
The exhibition touches on themes such as identity, staging, censorship and nostalgia, based on Nana RHB's own life in various roles as daughter, woman, artist, wife and mother.
In the process of painting, she works with different layers and overlaps and applies brush strokes over existing photographs in order to create a dialogue with the underlying source material, which remains visible to varying degrees.
The works are made on cardboard, paper, canvas and sailcloth, and she combines large colorful surfaces with parts of different visual material that she has collected and saved over the past few years.
The exhibition presents a present storyteller, and the works are full of visual richness and complexity, which gives the viewer the opportunity to explore Nana RHB's artistic universe and consider the many ways in which we see and understand the world around us.
Link to the artworks
John Reuss
In his works, John Reuss explores existential themes (identity, alienation, loneliness etc.) related to our modern way of life. With his semi-abstract compositions, Reuss invites the viewer to reflect on his own place in the world.
One of Reuss's greatest sources of inspiration over the years has been philosophical literature - and currently it is the philosophical work “Undinge” (non-things) by Byung-Chul Han, being one of the main sources. In the book, Han describes the relationship between the material and the immaterial in our modern, digital age. In the book, Han argues that the digital dominance has led to a world where material objects have lost their power and meaning, and how we have become more and more disconnected from the physical world around us.
In many ways, Reuss's works can be seen as a visual expression of some of the themes Han unfolds in "Undinge". Both Han and Reuss are concerned with the ways in which our relationship to the material world has been transformed by our modern lives. Byung-Chul Han argues that the digital world has led to a loss of meaning and significance in material objects, while Reuss's works often depict humans as fragmented and displaced from a physical context.
Furniture such as chairs and beds, which are normally recognizable and stable, in Reuss's works offer neither recognition nor stability - they are dissolved and meaningless, a reflection of Han's ideas about how, among other things, digital technologies have created a new form of existence, where everything is reduced to information and thus loses its materiality, just as we lose the stable anchor to the physical and to each other.
In this way, there is a parallel between Hans's ideas in "Undinge" and Reuss's works. Both challenge us to consider the meaning of the world we live in and encourage us to look deeper below the surface to find meaning. While Han's work offers a critique of the digital agenda that dominates our society, Reuss's art offers a path towards a deeper understanding of ourselves and our place in the world. Han and Reuss approach the relationship between the material and the immaterial in different ways, but share a common concern with how modern life has transformed our relationship with the physical world and social contexts.
Facts:
Place: Galleri NB, Viborg
Schedule : 29.04.-03.06.2023
Artists:
NBeX project: Nana RHB: The Girl With Many Eyes
Main gallery: John Reuss: Reuss -23
Links:
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- Slut dato: 2023-04-22
Steen Larsen
Crossroads
18.03 – 22.04
Steen Larsen made his debut in 1992 in, at that time, very small Galleri NB.
With artistic education at Dartington College of Arts and Den Frie Kunstskole back in the 80s, he decided to work with the realistic art direction.
Over the years, Steen Larsen has exhibited in the USA, among others Miami and New York. In addition, a number of European cities such as Oslo, Salzburg, Vilnius and Copenhagen.
YouTube: Steen Larsen - Crossroads
Steen Larsen's latest paintings approach the hyper realistic. Although he does not want to use sprays and various varnishes, the richness of detail and the factual are predominant.
But what makes Steen Larsen's painting so fascinating is his ability to add a special and very personal atmosphere to the work. In the selection and de-selection of realistic subjects in the painting, in conjunction with the depth of the visual expression, there is a compositional balance which supports what he really wants to promote with his painting: an interpretation of a certain mood in a place-specific area at a precise time of day .
In the paintings, viewers get the artist's interpretation of something recognizable and, for many people, a familiar motif - even if this may require a longer journey around America to find.
Direct photolink to the artworks.
PDF Catalog
- Slut dato: 2023-03-11
Vilmantas - Endless Journey
04.02 - 11.03
Vilmantas tells his story behind the theme: Link to YouTube video
Endless Journey
- a new theme from Vilmantas Marcinkevicius
Vilmantas will never forget February 2022. Together with his family, he was on a one-week holiday in Zanzibar for the first time after Covid-19.
The freedom to be able to gather again and travel out into the world excited Vilmantas. And as always, he was also curious and interested in what the local opportunities could offer. And of course he found Zanzibar to be a breathtaking island with sand, beach, hotels and an endless ocean.
But one day he sat in the bow of a small boat and looked out over the Indian Ocean. In the situation, Vilmantas was completely filled with a wonderful experience of the dynamics and interaction between the light, the sea, the sky and infinity.
A deep and intense experience, where the changes and changes of color beyond the sea and on the horizon set themselves as strong emotional imprints in his memory. So violent that at home in the studio he had to find a new artistic expression for his new thoughts about this experience of the infinity between sky and sea.
Back home
The normally figurative artist therefore went to the studio and sat down to put his impressions on canvas. In the beginning, it became three paintings, the expression of which overwhelmed the very few who were allowed a first look at the paintings. Among others, I was allowed to experience them myself - first in photos and then in reality.
I actually couldn't believe my eyes. Here I was faced with some works of art that filled me with just as much astonishment, palpitations and joy as when I had visited the Munch Museum in Oslo two weeks earlier. Without any comparison between the artists Edward Munch and Vilmantas Marcinkevicius, but still with a sincere joy at being allowed to face art, which set my endorphins in motion to such an extent.
Soon after, the gallery, with Vilmantas among others, participated in the art fair Art Vilnius 2022.
We chose to take two of the paintings to the art fair as a test of the audience's reactions to the new paintings. And what reactions!
The paintings were immediately sold to dedicated art collectors and at the same time the paintings created a lot of wonder and admiration around Vilmantas' new theme.
Endless Journey
An exhibition must of course have a title. The theme around the endless journey towards the horizon, the dreams or the goals is gathered in the title of the exhibition: Endless Journey, which exclusively presents the paintings and ceramic works which are the result of several months of animated effort by Vilmantas.
Seen in the context of previous exhibitions, we stand with something unique. All the works have the same composition, but the individual works have very different expressions in color and dynamics. As a whole, you feel the coherence of the title and at the same time you sense a harmonious, dynamic and beautiful intensity in each individual work of art.
The artist in the bow
For example, it is amazing how the deep and almost greasy ultramarine blue color creates a base for a touch of yellow-orange strokes. Or something similar, but this time with a red sky over a yellow sea in motion. Each time with the artist sitting in the bow of the boat, as the symbol of the difference between stability and movement. The bow of the boat appears almost like an exhibition bench for the artist and all the rest of us who want to be amazed by the breathtaking view.
Together with Vilmantas, these works give us an opportunity to dream and think big thoughts. Can we reach the horizon, or is the goal too far into infinity for us to reach?
As another explorer, we do not know what awaits us. But together with Vilmantas artworks, we can go on an endless, inspiring and magical journey of discovery for life.
Thorkild NB Nielsen
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