21st February 2008
At the Alexia Goethe Gallery two young artists share a fascination with architecture, exhibiting works which consider both the conceptual and fantastical potential of abandoned spaces.
Mie Olise Kjaergaard uses deserted structures such as quarry towers, mine shafts, ships and sawmills as the subjects for her paintings. Encapsulating both the function and redundancy of spaces and machines that were once productive, built and designed of necessity; there is a melancholy and sometimes brutality to her depiction of their neglect. Though there is sadness in the emptiness of these aged structures, they become enlivened by her vigorous, celebratory style. Painted in acrylic, the drips and splatters and texture of paint evoke an idea of liquefying, as if the structures are emerging from a sunken depth - even while this is offset by perspective and the emptiness of the backgrounds. The language of the paintings goes beyond the artist's individual investments to something that is both convincing and unforced. Kjaergaard captures the essence of these forms primarily through both large and small-scale paintings, but also through constructions and sculptures in wood and cardboard culminating in ramshackle and winding installations.
For this exhibition, Kjaergaard presents her most ambitious construction to date. As with the series of paintings and drawings the artist uses the outpost 'Pyramiden' as her point of departure - a desolate former Russian settlement in the Arctic. The fascination with this stranded city perhaps stems from the isolated nature of her youth which in part was spent on a sparsely inhabited Danish island...
