Spacex - Finnish artist Axel Antas

1st May 2008

Spacex is holding a solo exhibition by Finnish artist Axel Antas. The exhibition will consist of a new body of work including film, large scale drawings and a series of photographs taken in the harsh and vast Catalan Pyrenees. These pieces will be shown alongside a selection of earlier works from Antas’ Intervention series.

The Intervention series feature photographs of low lying mist and clouds hovering in park landscapes. The clouds are suspended in between trees, and seem to float just above the ground. On first viewing the images appear absurd and make believe which, in many ways they are. Antas explains that the clouds were artificially created, mimicking nature and momentarily changing the landscape which is captured in a single frame.

Antas pursues the notion of manipulating the landscape through his new body of work which was produced during a residency in the Catalan Pyrenees. He has created structures for birds to live in, placing these fragile bird boxes en masse amongst the harsh landscape or standing alone on a mountain top. What we view is the image; the image after this act, the image devoid of action. The lack of inhabitants and the poetic stillness of the images emphasise the gap between the surroundings and ourselves, representing man’s failed attempt to converge with the landscape...