Troels Carlsen: Bloomerang

Over the last two decades, Carlsen has developed a painting practice, in which canonical art historical subjects are transferred to otherworldly realms. Paintings beyond dreams with intentions too deliberate to be labeled Surrealist. His work incorporates nineteenth-century anatomical drawings into the world of his painting, resulting in visceral assemblages of hybrid figures. Without any emblems from modern everyday life, these proto-classical studies of the human body are just pure skin, muscles, structures, ready to be rewritten. With a vision to “illuminate the potential of life”, as he proclaims in a recent interview with the gallery, Carlsen urges us to revisit the contested concepts of man and animal, nature and culture, past and present, and macro and micro cultures, thriving on what could be perceived as paradoxes. His works conflate an abundance of wildlife – including roaring lions, black panthers, graceful birds, and a constant array of exaggerated fauna and vegetation – in psychedelic formations.

Carlsen’s interest in image creation explores how we recognize- and idealize both ourselves and others with romantic introspection. As the title of the exhibition suggests, a portmanteau of bloom and boomerang, when you throw something out in the world, it will return to you in a pollinated-and newly enlightened form. “Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant,” as a favorite author of Carlsen’s, Joan Didion, would say. What are we but constant change? May you bloom.

Kilde: Eighteen.