Your Spaces are my Places too
Cecilia Danell and Helga Steppan
Motala Konsthall, Sweden. 11th January - 8th February 2014
The two artists share the same hometown, Motala in Sweden, but through spending many years abroad, in England and Ireland respectively, their notion of home goes way beyond the invisible boundaries of their shared place of origin.Their two separate artistic practices intertwine in a series of artworks where not only Motala is their common (starting)point, but also their way of investigating, exploring and trying to understand their identity and environment through examining their past, their present locations and their everyday experiences.
My artworks featured in the exhibition:
A bit about my pieces:
Jung talked about the mask as a metaphor for the face we show the outside world. An ideal image of ourselves which we wish we could live by. When we identify with the Persona we lead a false existence and not until we accept all sides to our personality, good as well as bad, are we ready to start the individuation process which will ultimately make us into whole beings. Danell has worked with masks before, but for this body of work she decided to depict her own family members wearing joke masks, giving the theory of the Persona a playful, yet uncomfortable slant, a carnival mood which tips over into the absurd.
'Salt Lick' is an installation consisting of a found salt lick holder, where the tree trunk has been licked clean of it's bark by moose and deer. Danell is interested in the juxtaposition between soft natural shapes and that which is man-made and strictly geometrical. The white, cube shaped salt licks which hunters place in the woods have a somewhat banal quality. By exhibiting the salt lick and documenting the process of its acquisition in the painting 'Out of the Woods' Danell creates new contexts, both in a visual and a personal sense, since the piece can also act as a metaphor for uprootedness.
Gallery shots:
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