Press Release - "Into the Landscape" by Sune Christiansen
Sune Christiansen
”Untitled (Checkered Floor)”
Oil stick, acrylic paint, soft pastels & airbrush on canvas
120 x 160 cm
Maple frame
pt.2 Gallery
Into the Landscape
A solo exhibition by
Sune Christiansen
Opening Reception
Saturday, January 8th
Appointment Only 11 - 5pm
Public Opening Reception 6-9 pm
Showing Through February 4th, 2022
Schedule Private Viewing
pt. 2 Gallery is pleased to present Into the Landscape, a solo exhibition of new paintings by the Danish painter Sune Christiansen. In Christiansen’s first exhibition with the gallery, he mediates on the abstractions and figurations that develop from intuitive explorations in color and composition.
Inspired by a 1968 poem by the Danish Poet Per Højholt, Christiansen’s paintings pay tribute to the small changes that cross our paths, and the relative importance in spite of seemingly minute significance. In the poem, the same line repeats multiple times, yet with the line rearranged with each repetition. Much of Sune’s work follow’s a similar composition, reordering similar elements of color and shape, in turn recontextualizing them. Shifting scale, tonality and position, the illusions to the figure, gestural marks and abstract shapes take on new meaning in their various iterations.
Sune Christiansen
”Into the Landscape #2”
Oil stick, oil & soft pastels on paper
39.5 x 27.5 inches unframed
Museum glass maple frame
Straddling a line between abstraction and figuration, Christiansen’s intuitive paintings invite viewers to connect their own experiences to the the narrative beginnings alluded to in each work. In an untitled painting two vague figures appear next to one another, each in a similar seated pose. While one is depicted as a resplendent being in rich red oil stick and pastel, the other is without color, only the line distinguishing its form. The two rest atop a kaleidoscope of different colored squares. The viewer is left to connect these figures, represented in an unfamiliar scene to their own optic or understanding.
Many figures in Christiansen’s works are composed with black dots in the body. As he states: “These are figures that have been in the world. They are not pure, none of us are. The black dots represents the constant rhythm inside of us all the time. Whether through drastic differents or subtle nuances, these rhythms vary from person to person, from painting to painting. Seen side by side, it is apparent that even the smallest change can have a profound impact.