This group exhibition aims to explore the notion of the ‘in-between’: in-between states of consciousness, states of energy, reality, and imagination, the past and future. It is in this spirit that the title of this exhibition is a sound;
This title is our clumsy attempt to capture this liminal space—a challenge that defies the constraints of language as we usually use it, forcing us to come up with our own approach. Not only did we think this might make for an intriguing title, but it also highlights the difficulty of grasping or articulating this intangible place. However, where our title for this group show possibly fails, we feel that the artists’ artwork, through their materials, technique, and focus, succeeds. The works, in their individual styles, have a common trait in that they exude a tension that allows the spectator to move between definitions, experiencing a space that can feel familiar yet also foreign. The exhibition showcases a diverse range of artistic styles, spanning from abstract and figurative to semi-sculptural works. Featured artists include Jung A Lee, Sacha Grandemange, Emil Urbanek, Kolja Kärtner Sainz, Line Lyhne, Maxim Brandt, and Eliza Wagener.
The works by Jung A Lee approach the in-between states of consciousness or unconsciousness through a dynamic process. The artist works mostly in the mornings, immediately after waking, in an attempt to capture the reminiscence of a sleep state. Using wax pastels allows her to work intuitively and have an unfiltered extension of her mind. A mix of abstract colour fields and plant-like objects sprawl across the canvas, and through her choice of colours and contrast, she creates an intricate scape of layers that draws the spectator into the work.
In Eliza Wagener’s work, intuition also plays a leading role. She initially works with highly water-based paint, letting it flow across the canvas, creating an abstract base from which hazy silhouettes of intertwined bodies emerge. The figures and animals in Wagener’s work seem to have come forward only for a short glimpse, ready at any moment to fade back into their environment.
A similar approach to the interplay of abstraction and representation can be found in the works by Kolja Kärtner Sainz. The artist seeks an ideal intermediate state where representation and abstraction can coexist. Deeply exploring this intersection, he tries to freely interpret states of nature and the artificial, not to capture rigid moments, but rather blurs, movements, and changes in perception. Working with oil and ink in many layers, his paintings appear to render the conflicting forces of abstraction and figuration intertwined in futuristic states of never-ending change.
This sense of restlessness draws parallels to the works by Emil Urbanek. Their work evokes a sense of timelessness through their characteristic blurry style. The surface of the works suggests a graininess reminiscent of analogue photography paired with an exploration of vanitas subjects. This nostalgia is countered by details such as color and composition choices. In their work, the flowers are seemingly floating in a vase that seems much too big to hold them. Yet they levitate unbound by time and space. This depiction also speaks to their continuous exploration of bodily autonomy and the right to refuse definition through one’s environment.
In Line Lyhnes work the motifs draw from a mix of ornaments and hand-drawn patterns, creating a fluid imagery blending figuration and abstraction. Line Lyhne’s tiled reliefs utilise industrially produced tiles, dismantled and reassembled to imbue them with a handmade, worn aesthetic. This juxtaposition of industrial and handmade elements highlights the friction between them and challenges perceptions of labor and craftsmanship.
Maxim Brandt crafts surreal, poetic realms, blurring the lines between reality and fiction, present and memory. Mundane subjects undergo deconstruction and fusion, yielding enigmatic, dreamlike images with a self-contained logic. Each painting is an exploration of personal imagery, assembling disparate elements into cohesive 3D compositions akin to theatrical sets or poetic verses. Throughout the process, colors shift, lighting evolves, and compositions refine, culminating in a poetic expression of incoherence, acausality, and discontinuity.
Sacha Grandemange’s work navigates the blurred line between dreams and reality, distorting bodies and perceptions in a creaking waltz of intertwined silhouettes—playing, loving, fighting. His art reflects a profound quest for identity and explores power dynamics among people and their environments, whether urban or wild, real or hallucinatory. Through layers of physical and psychological issues, his pieces often veer toward the nightmarish, challenging perceptions of sweet dreams with dystopian undertones. Sacha’s creations reside on the delicate boundary between the present and internal perceptions, prompting contemplation of our direction and place in the world.
