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Wet Paint

WENDY PLOVMAND: WET PAINT
30 April – 5 June 2016

NEW STUDIO presents an exhibition of new work by Danish artist Wendy Plovmand, her first solo gallery show in the UK.

Plovmand (b.1975) makes striking installations combining mural painting, printmaking and objects that investigate the impact of digital technology on the making and sharing of images. For Wet Paint, Plovmand takes a range of found images and transforms them into digital abstractions that cover both the walls and floors of the gallery space. The writhing shapes of computer codes and electronic disturbances are choreographed by the artist’s hand gestures; alluding to the intuitive mark-making of abstract expressionist painting.

Four groups of source material are featured in the exhibition; firstly, Plovmand uses photographs of the Paleolithic cave paintings found in Lascaux, France, which alludes to the human necessity for visual communication. From this archaic moment, Plovmand then turns to the present by using photographs of NEW STUDIO including furnishings and architectural features. Archival images of outer space and floating satellites suggest the boundless and shifting dimensions of space and time, and the technology we develop to transmit information across the solar system. Finally, Plovmand includes aerial photographs of the Nevada desert found through Google searches. These locations are used as test-sites for research into the effects of earthquakes, and offer a parallel to the studio as a site of experimentation.

Running throughout all images is the notion that the Internet and smart technologies enable us to live within an expanding experience of time and place. Plovmand considers the digital realm as an irrepressible force, comparable to psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan’s ‘Lamella’: the autonomous, shape-shifting matter of the libido. In Plovmand’s work Lacan’s immortal Lamella becomes a metaphor for the Internet and its generative process of new information.

Wendy Plovmand (b.1975, Denmark) studied at The Royal Danish Academy of Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation (1996-2001) before graduating from Central Saint Martins, London with an MFA in 2010. Solo exhibitions include The Image that Paints the Canvas, Gallery Materiá, Rome (2015). She was recently selected for the BDL Media Arts festival, MAXXI, Rome and has participated in group shows at international venues including Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen; Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen. Plovmand is a founding member of New Shelter Plan, an artist-run exhibition space in Copenhagen where she lives and works.

The production of new work by Wendy Plovmand was generously supported by Egetæpper, Knud Højgaards Fond, L.F. Foghts Fond and The Danish Arts Foundation. The exhibition has been generously supported by Danish Arts Foundation and Embassy of Denmark, London.

Poppy Bowers, owner and curator of New Studio

MAXII

For The Media Art Festival at MAXXI Museum in Rome, Plovmand will take the site of the exhibition space as the material for a new installation. She will make photographic records of the architectural details of the exhibition area, digitally manipulating them before presenting them as abstract works back in the space as a site-specific installation.

By doing so, she highlights the power of the digital to make the familiar become unfamiliar and poses urgent questions as to its wider impact upon society.

The new work will be exclusively shown at MAXXI Museum.

Working across photography and painting, Plovmand questions the current impact of digital technology upon the making and sharing of images. Inspired by the psychoanalytic theories of Jacques Lacan, Plovmand’s practice looks at the digital realm as an uncontrollable force, that mirrors Lacan’s definition of the ‘Lamella’; a shape shifting physical embodiment of the libido.

Prompted by the notion of the Lamella, her recent work investigates the concept of digital processes as form, movement and change. Drawing upon found images, Plovmand transforms this physical material into digital files via a scanner, in order to make abstract this new pixelated information. By doing so, she corrupts any understanding of memory and place attached to the original source material.

At The Media Art Festival Plovmand will develop new ideas initiated in her project ‘Untitled-Unsend’ which formed her soloexhibitions at Gallery Materia, Rome (September 2015) and at NEW STUDIO in London (April 2016).

Valentino Catricalá Curator of BNL Media Art Festival.

Press Rome

The solo exhibition The Image that Paints this Canvas by Danish Artist Wendy Plovmand showcases her newly created body of work formed of archival pigment prints, objects, digital paintings and site-specific installations. Inspired by Lacan’s definition of The Lamella, the exhibition investigates the concept of digital process as form, movement and change.

“Lacan introduces the mysterious notion of ”the lamella”: The libido as an organ without body, the incorporeal and for that very reason indestructible life-substance that persists beyond the circuit of generation and corruption… Lacan imagines the lamella as a version of what Freud called partial object: a weird organ that is magically autonomized, surviving without the body whose organ it should have been, like the hand that wanders around alone in early surrealist films…”1

Three rugs on the gallery floor appear in the exact same size and place where a photograph of the gallery floor has been taken. The photograph is utilized as the basis for the material used to digitally paint a matching mark on the white rug. In the same way a series of printed photographic works (Lamella Caves) are mediated from the pieces that are missing in the original photographs; the works are connected by material and process in a symbiotic relationship that when mutating, give life to new hybrid species born out of the dialogue between photography and painting.

The Lamella understood as the material: a detached substance or matter that appears immortal and resembles the libido, a clear reference to the contemporary digital world. The digital realm – an unstoppable and formless matter – offers endless possibilities through perpetual and constant mutation. The Lamella too has its own life, a detached bodily organ or a mysterious snake like creature; immortal, representing life, death, creation and destruction.

The mark-making intuitive gesture, prominent in Plovmand’s exhibition, references the tradition of abstract painting where the success or failure of the work rests on chance; something accidental and casual such as the choice of brush or hand pressure. The mark-making gesture once again links to Lacan’s Lamella and the randomness of digital choices made when using the internet, search engines, computer programs etc.

The journey as a symbolic gesture and action plays a significant role in Plovmand’s work. The Image that Paints this Canvas can be viewed as an allegory for movement and change; the mugs and key chains featured reference the kitschy souvenirs that link the journey to memory and nostalgia – manifested actions capturing the volatile, digital libido.

The work in The Image that Paints this Canvas questions the boundaries of painting and photography through the investigation of digital process, utilising the gallery (Matèria) itself as a source to create new artworks. New Mutalism is born, a fitting conceptual definition for Plovmand’s newest body of work.

Curator and owner of Gallery Materiá Niccolo Fano

 

1 (Lacan, 1991:198)

 

Interview

Wendy Plovmand interviewed by Niccolò Fano
for Globalarchivephotography

Niccolò Fano: Let’s start from when we both enrolled on the Fine Art MA at Central Saint Martins in 2009. Tell us about the road that took you there.

Wendy Plovmand: The MA at Central Saint Martins was a major turning point in my artistic career. I finally got to pursue what I always felt like doing – working with Fine Art full time. For a couple of years I had interest in finishing a second MA within the Fine Arts to develop my work, get challenged by fellow artists, thinkers and professors. I believe it’s a huge privilege to study –you often don’t realize this when you are very young but once you get older –studying just becomes an exceptional opportunity to focus 100% on your interests without having to worry about anything else. A good friend of mine recommended Byam Shaw at Central Saint Martins in London and after doing an interview there I knew it would be the right course for me: the combination of Philosophy and Art was perfectly in line with my interests.

My family mostly counts labour workers – so I first became aware of my artistic urge after watching a television program in 1987 about the world famous Danish fashion designer Erik Mortensen –from then on I instinctively knew where to look and started to follow my interests in the creative field. I guess I always had a creative urge for something that at the time was undefined. At a young age, I got the opportunity to work with the world famous Utzon family in Denmark and Spain. One thing followed the other and suddenly I had a BA in Fashion and an MA in Graphic Design from The Royal Danish Academy of Arts. I met good people in the business – founded a design studio which quickly grew a lot of attention and our work gained great international acclaim. I was headhunted to work as the Art Director of the leading Danish fashion magazine. The years just flew by but nevertheless I always took time to work on my art projects, which were all very well received. I guess I could have chosen to follow my artistic career 10 years ago but for me this has been the right way to approach it. I am an artist and an entrepreneur and I get a lot of ideas along the road. Being an artist or creative is a way of living –it’s not only about your work. Therefore I have been moving around in the creative field before finally taking the step into a full time art career.

NF: Your work is informed by a wide selection of mediums with the use of sculpture, illustration, painting and photography. How did you form your methodology and what is the driving factor pushing your creations?

WP: My work is informed by a number of things. Having an expanded work experience within the creative fields allows me to work with many different methods and medias. Overall my work reflects my diverse background; I work with construction and image structure, paintings and objects. I construct and use a collage technique, where I paint, cut up, over-paint and move around pieces. I often translate elements from one work in another, therefore creating a symbiotic relationship between the two. As an artist I find my work to be driven by exploration, curiosity and process. The driving factor behind it all is the merging of process, thought, materials, intuition and personal history that creates something quite unique, yet something that questions a specific social condition or experience that is then shared with the audience.

NF: Your use of colour seems to be an element that translates across your numerous projects, regardless of the subject matter and medium. What is your connection to this particular feature?

WP: With a background in the Graphic Design field, colors have always been a very important part of my work. Colour to me is like language – intuitively I compose with colours. Composition and the dynamic of an image are heavily dependent on the relationship between colours. I strive for a balance or unbalance – a combination that perhaps irritates, annoys or make one curious.

NF: You have recently focused on photography for your series The Unsent Postcard. Tell us about this body of work and what prompted the decision to use photography as your primary medium and more specifically the postcard?

WP: The Unsent Postcard series is an ongoing project I started to work on last year. When moving between studios I came across a selection of old postcards I had collected 10 years earlier from flee markets. I had labeled them Spectacular Postcards. At that time I was working on a group exhibition called Paper Match and one of the guidelines was to somehow use paper, either in it’s physical or philosophical form.

Working with paper is an inspiration –I instantly thought about letters; the ones we write or do not write anymore and the postcard as a visual manifestation of our lives and adventures. My profound interest in the concept of the ‘Unsent’ is inspired by Lacan’s idea of the unsent letter. Lacan argues that ‘The Unsent letter is a subjective truth and therefore too precious to be entrusted to the gaze of the actual addressee’.  And therefore ‘the unsent letter/postcard precisely reaches its true destination because it is never sent’. It’s all about the unspoken truth.

The starting point for The Unsent Postcard series is a carefully selected group of found postcards that serve as a departure to investigate and transform subjective experiences related to the act of travelling both in a physical and symbolic/psychological understanding of this act. The works relate to an unconscious psychological journey through what is real and what is subjective. The cliché images from the postcards reflect both the dream and the illusion of life in the depicted locations. The countries and their history blend with the cliché – the crowded, glorified holiday resort. This is precisely where my interest in the project manifests itself, lying in between the pop culture commonplaces and a psychotherapeutic symbolism that leads to the questioning of true and false, the familiar and the unknown. The whole idea of The Unknown in the Well Known or The Well Known in The Unknown is essential to the project.

NF: In The Unsent Postcard series, landscapes, portraits and still life are merged together creating a layered aesthetic. Many of the images are made to look somewhat unrecognizable and abstract. Tell us about this aesthetic choice. Layers are like skin – we live within layers of truth, the subjective versus the objective. How many layers must we unveil to understand the real meaning of truth? To me it’s about investigating and asking questions.

In my work I draw lines between recognizable objects & places and aestheticise the undiscovered by twisting parts of the image. It can be a simple little act of remodeling an image or changing something unexpected quite abruptly –a small change that changes everything. The end result is abstract imagery that appears to be remotely recognizable yet uncanny in terms of referencing the unconscious and the symbolic.

NF: It’s always interesting to have a glimpse into what an artist – that doesn’t use photography as a primary tool – thinks of the photographic medium. How would you describe your relationship with photography?

WP: For me photography is a medium and a material I use like I use paint or paper. I also use it to document a piece of work or employ it as an artistic act. For instance I had to dump a huge sculpture when moving from London back to Copenhagen: I photographed the gesture and it became a new piece of work. Photographs supply me with a bridge to reality and allow me to work with imagery in a way that enables us to question truth and fiction. Recently I’ve been working on a series of photographs staging sculptural elements of my paintings in different locations  – the Swedish wood for example. With this particular project I am interested in investigating photography’s capability of representing a heavy gesture. I like the idea that the final art work is a single photographic print and condensed in the photo is all the effort of a painting, a sculpture, a stage, a location.

In The Unsent Postcard series and Composition with Sisters I use photographic material as a resource and starting point for an investigation of a place, a condition or a construction. I am interested in what happens when you change the history of an image. How can you change it without eliminating its initial relevance and meaning? I recently encountered the work of Matt Lipps and Sara Vanderbeek who both work with found images (photographs from books and magazines) and sculpture creating very captivating constructions.

NF: Has your recent focus on photography changed your view on the medium?

WP: I see a lot of potential in photography in relation to my own work. I feel the medium is somehow more accessible and relevant to me than ever before. I have worked with photography early in my career but it never felt coherent at that stage. By using found images and working with them as I work with painting and other media, photography suddenly seems to offer a new dimension to my artistic practice.

NF: You now live and work in Denmark and seem to be juggling your artistic career quite well whilst simultaneously having a family and working on a number of separate creative projects. How important is creative versatility in terms of allowing your career to proliferate without deviating too much from your artistic goals?

WP: Well that is always the challenging part isn’t it? I choose to work on meaningful projects by being selective. A good project is an inspiring one and one that pays your rent at the same time. I need to make a living and I have chosen not to see, manoeuvring in between artistic fields, as an issue and I don’t regard working on commercial projects as a problem. I feel very lucky to be able to make a living by working on creative projects rather than having to do something entirely different. Having 2 small kids also makes you very effective and focused because you don’t have the luxury of endless hours in the studio. I like to work with tight deadlines and under pressure – I am a bit of a work sadist I guess.

NF: Tell us about New Shelter Plan, the new gallery you just set up in Copenhagen.

WP: I am very excited about this new project. Together with 3 other Artists I have founded New Shelter Plan – a contemporary,  non-profit exhibition space dedicated to challenging the existing Danish art scene. It’s an unusual 200 m2 exhibition space -a former part of a huge industrial storage space in the old Carlsberg district in Copenhagen.

Our primary focus is new contemporary art by showcasing up and coming as well as established international Artists working in a wide range of media. We especially encourage concepts that challenge the art scene and projects that offer the artist a chance to explore new artistic avenues. New Shelter Plan distinguishes itself from other artist run exhibition spaces by the constellation of an advisory board (that counts curators, writers, artists and head of exhibitions) that meets 4 times a year and selects which exhibition proposals to accommodate, from the open calls. Our aim is to consolidate a vibrant, dynamic and engaging exhibition space that is able to maintain flexibility and energy throughout the exhibition program.

NF: Will you be using photography again after the experience with your recent full immersion? What is your focus and plans for the immediate future?

WP: In terms of exhibitions I am planning a solo show in Rome and a Group Show in Copenhagen. After a great number of independent projects, curatorial work and some commercial commissions – I really look forward to immerse into my own work for a while. I get new ideas all the time -so spending most of the time in my studio for the next couple of months will be essential to develop my projects –I am always working on several projects at once. We are working on a publication in relation to our most recent New Shelter Plan show, GamingGaming that featured a few pieces from The Unsent Postcard series. It will be reminiscent of an exhibition catalogue because we will include process related material form the artist’s creation processes. It will include notes, sketches, comments, thoughts and whatever additional material the artists have used to achieve the final result showcased in GamingGaming. The publication will include texts by Art critic Lisbeth Bonde, Dr. Vanda Playford and Barry Phipps, fellow at Cambridge University and curator at Kettle’s yard.

In the immediate future I will be working on a mural commission for a 160 m2 facade painting of a Copenhagen urban structure –we will start the work early May when the temperature in Copenhagen is more permissive.

Words

Working across painting and photography, Plovmand questions the current impact of digital technology upon the making and sharing of images in her new body of work. Inspired by the psychoanalytic theories of Jacques Lacan, Plovmand’s practice looks at the digital realm as an uncontrollable force, one that mirrors Lacan’s definition of the ‘Lamella’; a shape shifting physical embodiment of the libido.

In 2016 Plovmand has her first solo exhibition at a London gallery, New Studio  curated by Poppy Bowers, Co-curator at Whitechapel Gallery.

Plovmand is the Co-founder of New Shelter Plan – a new contemporary art venue in central Copenhagen. She regularly curates exhibitions and her work has been awarded grants from The Danish Art Council, Knud Højgaards Foundation, LF. Fought’s Foundation and Politiken Foundation.

Plovmand graduated with an MFA (Dist) from Central Saint Martins School of Art in 2010. Same year she was shortlisted for Future Maps 2010. Plovmand additionally holds a BA+ MA from The Royal Danish Academy of Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation.

CV

2009-2010 MFA (Distinction) from Central Saint Martins, Byam Shaw, London
1996-2001 BA+ MA from The Royal Danish Academy of Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation

SELECTED Solo Shows
2016 upcoming: New Studio, “WET PAINT” curated by Poppy Bowers, Curator at Whitechapel Gallery & Kirsty Ogg, Director of Bloomberg New Contemporaries, London, supported by The Danish Art Foundation
2015 Gallery Materiá, “The Image that paints this Canvas”, Rome.
2014 Facade at Bülowsvej commissioned and supported by Frederiksberg Foundation and The City Counsil of Frederiksberg
2014 The Room Gallery, “Untitled-Unsend” Rome. (Book)
2010 The Danish Embassy, “Studio works -Totemic desire”, London.
2007 The Movie City Aarhus, “Everything is totally Fine”, Denmark.
2007 Normann Copenhagen, “Mosh Room”, Cph.
2005 Danish Design Center, “Fucking Perfect -Perfectly Fucked”, Cph.

Curatorial Experience
2015 Wilderness, New Shelter Plan, Cph.
2014 NewSsshhelterPlan #2, Vorwerk, Hamburg
2014 GamingGaming, New Shelter Plan, Cph.
2013 NewSsshheltherPlan, Opening show at New Shelter Plan, Cph.
2013 Founder of New Shelter Plan, Art gallery in Cph.
2012 PAPER MATCH, Halmlageret, Carlsberg, Cph.
2011 NO FUN, dsv, Carlsberg, Cph.

SELECTED Group Shows
2016 upcoming: Rome Media Art Festival at Maxxi Museum, Rome
2016 BEERS 5, 100 Kvinder på Kro, kurateret af Melou Vangsgaard, Huset for Kunst og Design, Dk
2015 BEERS 5, 100 Kvinder på Kro, kurateret af Melou Vangsgaard, Byens Kro, Kbh.
2015 Wilderness, New Shelter Plan, Cph.
2014 NewSsshhelterPlan #2, Vorwerk, Hamburg.
2014 GamingGaming, New Shelter Plan, Cph.
2013 NewSsshheltherPlan, Opening show at New Shelter Plan, Cph.
2013 BEERS4, Byens Kro, Cph. Curated by Malou Vangsgaard and Christian Finne
2012 Rød Lagerbygning, International Mermaids, Copenhagen DK, curated by Ida Kvetny
2012 Halmlageret, Carlsberg, Paper Match, Copenhagen DK
2011 DSV, Carlsberg, No Fun, Copenhagen DK
2011 The Cadogan Hotel, YOUNG ART, Sloane street, London
2010 Scope Miami -juried by Elisabeth Sussman, Senior Curator, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and Jarrett Gregory, Curatory of Contemporary Art, The New Museum, New York, New York
2010 Celeste Art Prize, The Invisible Dog, Brooklyn, New York 11-13 Dec 2010
2010 MA Degree Show, Byam Shaw School of Art, Central Saint Martins, London
2010 Artbox gallery, Tokyo
2010 Interim Show, Byam Shaw/Central Saint Martins, The Concrete gallery, London
+ The Crypt gallery, “126 Days”, London
2009 Aqua Miami Art Fair, Miami -juried by Alma Ruiz, Curator at MOCA – The Museum of
Contemporary Art Los Angeles, Michele Urton, Curator of Contemporary Art LACMA – AndreaCashman and Kathy Grayson, Directors of Deitch Projects.
2007 Trapholt Museum, The Biennale of Craft and Design, Denmark
2007 Marienlyst Castle, “Art across borders”, Denmark
2006 Centre of Contemporary Art, DEN FRI, “Autumn Exhibition”, Copenhagen
2005 Kunsthal Charlottenborg “Spring Exhibition”, Copenhagen
2004 Kunsthal Charlottenborg “Spring Exhibition”, Copenhagen
2001 Gallery Asbaek, “Copkop”, Curated by Thorgej Steen Hansen, Copenhagen

Selected Grants :

2016 Danish Arts Counsil, Visual Arts,
2015 Knud Højgaards Fond, City Counsil of Cph, TuborgFonden
2014 Danish Arts Counsil, Visual Arts and City Counsil of Cph
2013 Danish Arts Counsil, Visual Arts (International) and City Counsil of Cph, LF Foghts Fond and Knud Højgaards Fond
2012 Danish Arts Counsil, Visual Arts, Politiken Fonden, Grosserer LF Foghts Fond
2011 Knud Højgaards Fond, National Bank of Denmark
2010 Danish Arts Counsil
2009 Augustinus Fonden and Oticon Fonden, Knud Højgaards Fond and Travelling grant from the National Bank of Denmark
2009 2 months working grant at The National Workshop for Arts and Crafts, Cph
2007 Working grant from the National Bank of Denmark and working grant from the Danish Arts Counsil
2007 Travelling grant from Danish Ministry of Culture, to promote work in New York during
2006 Travelling grant from the National Bank of Denmark
2005 Residency NYC from BG Foundation and Travelling grant from the National Bank of Denmark and the Danish Arts Counsil