Anastasia Savinova
Geosmin is a molecule produced by bacteria that gives off the characteristic but difficult-to-describe odour associated with moist soil. It is also the name of a series of sculptures and drawings by Anastasia Savinova, which share a similar balance between the dark, the unfamiliar and the irresistibly attractive. Savinova’s art has one foot clearly anchored in the world around her. Not least in the earth and ecology that we are resolutely destroying. But what comes out of her hands are not images, but hybrids. Her forms, materials, assemblages of found objects and creations have passed through human experience and are neither created for their surroundings nor to speak about them, but to interact with them. Undeterred by monumentality and with a sculptural display in scale, Savinova has hung the old fishing boats from the Barents Sea as cocoons, ominous or hopeful, holding the promise of some sort of life.
Erik Thörnqvist
In Erik Thörnqvist’s work, surfaces arc, both literally and figuratively. Functional furniture made with the intention of supporting human bodies gets up and walks, a convincing proof that the absurd is inherent in the rational and only needs to be set free by a creative and open force that recognises the gravity of play. For some, the modern was the perfect form of the logical, edifying and normative order that would help and support man. But by whom, for whose body and on whose terms? With a particular attention to detail, Törnqvist displays a mastery of material and form that he combines with a conceptual rigour that stands firm in artistic expression, regardless of descriptive or explanatory text.
Image: Erik Thörnqvist & Anastasia Savinova. Photo: Christofer Dracke
