Painting (MA)
Trine Struwe
Trine Struwe (b. 1988) is a Danish artist based in London (UK) and Copenhagen (DK). She graduated with a BFA from Malmö Art Academy (SE) in 2016 and participated in a foreign exchange program at The Cooper Union in New York (US) in 2015. Recently her solo-exhibition Soft, Strong, Slow was shown at the Dyson Gallery in London. Previously her work has been shown in curated contexts at Kunsthal Charlottenborg (Copenhagen), Lunds Konsthall (Lund, SE), Sirin Gallery (Copenhagen), Obra (Malmö, SE) and the Center of Photography (Stockholm, SE). Trine also co-founded the small press Tacet Press in 2017 focusing on artist books, with work exhibited at Wiels Art Book Fair (Bruxelles, BE) and SixtyEight Art Institute (Copenhagen) in 2019. In 2020 Trine will continue working as artist-in-residence at DIA, The Danish Institute at Athens.
My practice spans experimental photography, sculpture, drawing and text.
In my work, I am investigating the intersections between material and language. I believe there is an affective and lyrical potential in materiality – suggestive of experiences that we might share.
My work is constructed from materials that are carefully processed, translated and/or presented anew, in an attempt to release these inherent narratives. I work with surfaces and objects that are responsive to their surroundings – the lighting of the space they are in, the weather conditions under which they are processed and the bodies of the viewers that activate the works into being. The materials I use are varied: photo-emulsion on fabrics made for dress-making or soft furnishing, used bedsheets, conductive inks, or the by-products of everyday rituals such as slivers of soap from my grandmother, my mother, my aunts, my sister and me.
The matter we surround ourselves with is saturated with history and society, heavily mediated through language. Similarly, language can be thought of as always formed by a particular mouth: as stemming from mater-ial. The shape of someone’s body outlines each syllable and sound, giving an o a unique kind of softness and each t a specific click with each tongue: a form of alternative code, a residue. Through working with material as imbued carriers of histories, I believe it is possible to release and rework these alternative codes – rewrite what the body knows.
I believe that we name matter so that it corresponds to our world and views – when our world and views are changing, our languages are changing too, in a circular movement. Neither language nor material are atemporal tools. When our imagination of matter impacts how we treat it, a re-imagination of material (and a sensitivity towards these subtle semantics of matter) seems more urgent than ever.
- Trine Struwe (2020)
Syllables — Wax, pigment
Syllables (two shoulders and three eyes) — Wax, pigment
Syllables — Wax, pigment
Syllables (spine) — Wax, pigment
Syllables (arm and belly) — Wax, pigment
Syllables (two eyes) — Wax, pigment
Syllables — Wax, pigment
Syllables (ear) — Wax, pigment
Syllables (arm) — Wax, pigment
Syllables — Wax, pigment
This series of sculptures takes its starting point in language. A typeface is constituted by letters, which can be dissected into parts: the anatomical features of the font. As examples: the “shoulder” is the curved stroke of an n, while the “ear” is the small stroke that projects from the g. The sculptures consist of these disassembled limbs. The features – with their bodily counterparts – give the font a personality and a mood.
I worked with typedesigner Kasper Pyndt to dissect the features in 2D. These shapes were CNC milled for precision and subsequently cast in pigmented wax, with the pigment diluted with every cast. The wax is responsive to the warmth and the humidity of the space, brittle and translucent, yet flexible and slippery.
As physical objects, the sculptures function as remnants of the specificity of an advanced writing system, but are not discernible in their free form: an abstraction within that which makes the system specific. A curved stroke nestles in the corner while a belly-shaped opening tucks itself in beneath the heating element. Orifices, tails, spines, vents and mouths merging into new symbols, signs and letters.
Installation view: Sirin Gallery (Copenhagen, DK)
Photos by Jenny Sundby
Year: 2020
Medium:
Wax, pigmentSize:
Dimensions variable
Slivering — Bronzecasts of soap slivers from my grandmother, my mother, my aunts, my sister and me
Slivering — Bronzecasts of soap slivers from my grandmother, my mother, my aunts, my sister and me
Slivering — Bronzecasts of soap slivers from my grandmother, my mother, my aunts, my sister and me
Slivering (grandmother) — Bronzecasts of soap slivers from my grandmother, my mother, my aunts, my sister and me
Slivering (aunt) — Bronzecasts of soap slivers from my grandmother, my mother, my aunts, my sister and me
Slivering (grandmother) — Bronzecasts of soap slivers from my grandmother, my mother, my aunts, my sister and me
Slivering — Bronzecasts of soap slivers from my grandmother, my mother, my aunts, my sister and me
Slivering (mother) — Bronzecasts of soap slivers from my grandmother, my mother, my aunts, my sister and me
The washing of hands, face and body allows for a slow sculpting of an intimate and receptive material. Here I want to channel the collapse of generations that takes place within a body – your mother and her mother lives inside of you. And you live inside of them as, during pregnancy, cells from the fetus enter the mother’s body where they become part of her tissues for the rest of her life. We have never been one.
Installation view: Sirin Gallery (Copenhagen, DK)
Photos by the artist
Year: 2020
Medium:
Bronzecasts of soap slivers from my grandmother, my mother, my aunts, my sister and meSize:
9 casts of approx. 6x3x1 cm eachIn the video, I am talking to my mother, spelling out words carefully on her palm, leaving the viewer deaf and blind. The words are carefully constructing a set of mnemonics in Danish (my mother tongue), instructing the use of this technique of tactile communication.
Year: 2020
Medium:
HD VideoSize:
6:46
Bed — Paper handmade from used bedlinen
Bed — Paper handmade from used bedlinen
Bed — Paper handmade from used bedlinen
Installation view: Sirin Gallery (Copenhagen, DK)
Photos by Jenny Sundby and David Stjernholm
Year: 2020