Gallery NB dares to build up two new solo exhibitions:
Facts:
29.01 - 28.02
MAIN gallery
Steen Larsen: Nevertheless
NBeX project
John Reuss: Transition
Link to:
3D tour of the exhibition including the artists' comments on the individual works
YouTube: John Reuss comments his paintings
How to buy:
Visit the exhibitions virtually via our websites / 3D tours. Get inspired by what you see. And if you would like to see the work in your home or company, please contact Gallery NB tel. +45 86628224 - email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and we will agree on the further course.
Press release:
Friday the 29th of January opens - or rather reveals Gallery NB, two solo exhibitions.
Given the Corona restrictions, it is immediately an insane project, but explanation follows.
Introduction of the artists and their exhibitions:
MAIN gallery
Steen Larsen
Nevertheless
Link to the artworks: click at the photo.
The upcoming solo exhibition in Gallery NB - MAIN gallery with Steen Larsen, has of course been given a title, which refers to the Covid-19 situation. Nevertheless or No matter what…., Tells the story that beneath the surface, life goes on.
Steen Larsen takes us on three types of experiences: rain-soaked windows, American impressions and the sea off Ballehage.
In any case, his unusual overpainting techniques give the paintings a special sensitivity to the light that is in the room at all times.
Should you, for example, experience one of Steen Larsen's rain-soaked paintings in dim lighting, you will feel reserved as a passenger in the front seat of a car. In the car's dark interior, you look out of the rain-soaked windshield - on a more or less blurred, almost abstract landscape. You sit, so to speak, in the dark and look into the painting and out onto the road and the landscape.
Before the corona crisis, Steen Larsen was in the United States. It is a nation with an incredible amount of culture and nature. In particular, he feels at ease in finding the hidden motives, such as an old rusty American car left behind behind the owner's house. In the expression one senses the heat, the dust and an almost melancholy abandonment. Or in the steep streets of San Francisco, where you feel like the abyss is right on the other side of the hilltop.
More homely and safe, Steen Larsen finds peace in experiencing the rolling of the waves towards the bathing bridge at Ballehage, south of Aarhus. Preferably an early morning where the light is bright and intense. Regardless of the fact that the motif may seem banal, Steen Larsen can do something with water and sky. Thanks to his strong technique, he succeeds in making the motif alive and relevant. You actually stand by the bathing jetty and can almost feel the coolness, freshness, wind and smell.
The three themes together form the framework for an exhibition that paints the portrait of a mature artist who knows his metier to the fingertips.
It is not the first time that we have seen him in Gallery NB, as he made his debut in 1992, in the then somewhat smaller gallery. But the journey has been extraordinarily exciting and Nevertheless is a preliminary highlight.
NBeX project
John Reuss
Transition
Link to the artworks: click at the photo.
An artist whose paintings are alluring, strangely fascinating, and demands your attention fits John Reuss extremely well. He is among the most exciting Danish up-coming artists who, with his very personal expression in the paintings, know how to attract justified attention.
John Reuss himself says of his work: Terms such as "existential surrealism" or "psychological realism" have often been used about my work - which I think describes it well. I aim to create art that not only tells about me, but also speaks to the viewer and is open to interpretation - that may contain meanings that I myself have not foreseen.
The main theme of John Reuss' work is the alienation of mind and body. In particular, the alienation of the body in relation to the environment is most obvious.
After a long period of acrylic painting and its positive ability to maintain the clean surfaces, John Reuss has once again switched to oil painting, which can add more textural surfaces to the paintings.
Body and space, such as the daybed, chair, table, etc., are the most important elements in the construction of the image surface. They support the body's most often lying position and at the same time create space and depth around the body. The abstract spaces and displacements of the picture elements, as opposed to the body's possibilities to break the frames and thus confuse the viewers, have a mysterious ability to make John Reuss' paintings magical.
At the same time, one senses that the artist has strong emotions at stake. The motifs show a form of bodily loneliness, which hides an inner turmoil and the search for harmony. The harmony comes in the form of strong compositions, where the sharp edges and soft shapes play together around and up against the fragmented body parts that try to destroy the harmony. These are strong cases that just make it interesting for the observer to decode.
John Reuss often works with the portrait or, in fact, the face. Here the compositions are simpler, yet they are unusually able to express how complicated emotions they individually store.
There is no doubt that John Reuss uses himself in his paintings. The individual paintings are the result of an inner dialogue, which triggers a process and then an adaptation of the psychology of the mind.
The works leave no doubt that there is a dedicated transmission of facts and mental experiences between the artist, the work and the viewers. It is psychology and transition at a higher level.
For John Reuss, the exhibition is a personal highlight. For the rest of us, this is a unique encounter with an artistic personality, which can make us want to study his paintings closely, and then acknowledge that we with John Reuss have an unusual Danish talent.
New initiatives for exposure and handling of the exhibitions:
The Corona restrictions invite completely new ways of thinking about the dissemination of works of art during an exhibition. Gallery NB has therefore devised a plan which intends to cater for both the artists and the customers.
The process around the dissemination changes radically, as the gallery first builds up both exhibitions in MAIN gallery and NBeX project, respectively.
So far, everything is normal, but instead of inviting guests and customers physically into the gallery, we do the following instead:
Link to the 3D virtual tour: click at the photo.
In a close collaboration between Artpilot and Xplor XR Archive, we make 3D visualizations of both exhibitions, which means that the audience at home can go to virtual exhibitions. In addition, next to each work you will be able to click on the work and not only get the factual information, but also a short video with the artist's commentary on the work.
Since the public under the restrictions does not have access to experience the exhibitions physically in the gallery, it is instead possible for the gallery to hand over the works of art immediately to the customers.
Quite simply, this setup consists of interested customers first contacting the gallery. The gallery then agrees with the customer on the delivery time. If the customer then wants to keep the artwork, it will of course please both the customer and the artist.
At a time when galleries are barred from inviting audiences to visit, we find this solution worth trying.