Gallery Ü ARTcade::Anders Knutsson
Gallery Ü announces the opening exhibition of
Anders Knutsson :: Luminous Luminosity
Phosphorus Pigment Paintings, Costumes, Improvisatory and Experimental Dance
Opening Reception
Friday, 15 April, 5-9 p.m.
Dance Performance by Lynn Deering and Joe Booth
The Dance/Theatre Collective
(Based at Cleveland State University & Lake Erie College)
Music by Jan Eddy van der Kuil (Formerly of DINK) and dot
Sean Carlin (Formerly of DINK) CANCELED
Closing Reception
Friday, 20 May, 5-8 p.m.
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For Immediate Release: March 28, 2005
Patsy Kline
owner/director/curator
(216) 323-0085
www.galleryucleveland.com
Cleveland, Ohio — Gallery Ü announces the opening exhibition of Luminosity, phosphorus pigment paintings and costumes by Anders Knutsson. And Luminous, the improvisatory and experimental dance performance performed by members of the Dance/Theatre Collective, accompanied by Sean Carlin and Jan Eddy van der Kuil, formerly of DINK. The opening reception is April 15, from 5-9 p.m. The exhibition runs thru May 20 with a closing reception from 5-8 p.m. Gallery hours are Friday and Saturday, 12-4 p.m., 3rd Friday of the month during ARTwalk, 12-9 p.m. and by appointment.
Anders Knutsson — first encountered phosphorus pigments as painting materials in 1978 and immediately fell in love with the luminosity of phosphorus paint, which provides the same mystery and excitement for Knutsson today. Marc Egger, a Swiss painter who has worked with phosphorus materials for years, is a valuable source of information for Knutsson with regard to commercial and technical information about phosphorus pigments. At his first exhibition of luminous paintings at Galerie Ressle in Stockholm in 1981, Knutsson was greeted with unexpected surprise and then applause by the sophisticated, urban audience, once his monochrome and mono-lux paintings were shown in the dark. This was followed by successful solo exhibitions in Lund, Sweden, and Buffalo, New York.
Knutsson is currently collaborating with musicians and dancers, such as the Cool New York ’05 Dance Festival, to develop a performance concept that is improvisatory and experimental in nature. Wearing his painted costumes, the performance has three equal components: sound, movement, and light. Like a jazz trio, the Luminous performance trio must be able to blend their talent and energy with the other performers to create a “performance of the moment” dynamic. This element of unpredictability and spontaneity gives the performance its excitement. Equally exciting is the altering of expectations. The traditional expectations of paintings, dance and music are suspended: colour is freed from the canvas, music from the instrument and movement from the body.
In the dark, the luminous paint emits colour that is diffuse and appears to float — disembodied — in space. With no physical clues to the colour’s source, the changes in the paint become a focal point. The dancer’s movements are also disembodied as they are visible primarily through the luminous colour on the dancer’s costume. The music surrounds the audience and seems to come from no direction and all directions, mirroring and enhancing the visual ambience and disembodiment. A dialogue between the trio occurs where colour harmonizes the music, the dancer’s movements animates the colour, and music weaves the movement and colour.
In addition, Knutsson’s paintings of trees represent a powerful and symbolic imagery to which the artist very deeply relates. For this reason, the trees are well suited to the medium of luminous painting. Knutsson either works directly from memory and imagination, or paints over a light pencil line drawing on prepared canvas. The artist quickly became inspired by real trees in the park. They seemed to him “more powerful, personal and ‘together’” than anything invented in his studio. In the "trees," the viewer encounters nearly the same image in the darkness; however, the glowing shapes in the dark pull the viewer in. They are stronger and more articulate in details and perspective space then the daylight paintings.
The tree makes an immediate impact on us and is rich in association. Its meaning and expression reaches deep into our culture and the myths of both past and present. "It is an image of trust, strength, loyalty, knowledge," Knutsson acknowledges. "The tree is an integral part of stories, myths and most religions — the tree of life, the world tree, the tree of enlightenment." Knutsson points out that it sustains life and raises the quality of our lives. Economically, it is the main source of wealth for countries like Sweden. Biologically, it is a principal source of oxygen for all.
Knutsson was born and grew up in a suburb of Malmö, Sweden. Situated near Denmark on the western side of Skåne, Sweden's southernmost province and “breadbasket,” the large city of Malmö rests in a region of rolling hills and well-kept farms that appears studded with villages and small towns — all connected by a dizzying network of roads and lanes. Much of the lavish lifestyle promoted by the wealthy farmers of the previous century is now gone. Yet, there remains among many natives Swedes like Knutsson, a deeply felt consciousness of the landscape as a mixture of nature and culture. This identity expresses itself in terms of harmony and coexistence.
The artist moved to New York in 1976 and now lives in a loft in Brooklyn. He sees a great contrast in “body and spirit” between Skåne and Brooklyn. There is a pattern of crowding and urban neglect in Brooklyn that Knutsson finds repeated in other American cities. The time that he is able to spend in nearby Prospect Park and Brooklyn Botanical Garden, or the longer trips to New England and Canada, are especially precious to him. He needs the presence of nature to help restore balance to his senses and to reconnect with the creative and organic forces of nature. Every chance to be outdoors becomes a liberating experience for the artist. "And for me, that feeling is enhanced and articulated by the particulars of the moment: weather, wind, time, season and the landscape itself. There is a possibility, a promise, sometime even an insistence, of transcendence in the immersion in nature for me."
Knutsson’s paintings bring to life the experience of light in its many forms. They raise our consciousness of reflected and emitted light, diffused and focused light. Abstract or expressionistic, these paintings yield real and fundamental insights about our life and the world of nature around us — truths that the viewer experiences on his or her own terms and from the perspective of culture. Few painters have explored with such commitment the mysteries of naturally luminescent pigments in the context of fine art, and very few have revealed with such eloquence and familiarity the complex nature of reality that these pigments embody.
Knutsson has regularly exhibited his paintings since 1972, with solo exhibitions first on Ohio and Sweden and soon after in New York and New England. The success of his recent one-man exhibition in Seoul, South Korea, reflects the international interest in his work.
The Dance/Theatre Collective — Lynn Deering, Associate Professor, Cleveland State University, is Director of the CSU Dance Program and Artistic Director of the CSU Dance Company. A 2004 recipient of the Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Award, Deering is an active performer/choreographer with The Dance/Theater Collective, a cooperative group of Northeast Ohio dancers. Joe Booth is diligently working towards adding a few more experiences to his role as dancer/choreographer. Booth has been a performer and collaborative choreographer with The Dance/Theater Collective since its inception and a former member of the Pennsylvania Dance Theater. The title of singer/actor can also be added, as Booth appeared in the Cleveland Opera's production of Sweeney Todd at the State Theater in early December.
Sean Carlin & Jan Eddy van der Kuil — formerly of DINK, an alternative band with heavy funk-metal, industrial, and rap grooves. Their self-titled debut was released early in 1995 and the first single pulled from the record received a fair amount of MTV and modern rock radio airplay. DINK went there different ways in the late ‘90’s. van der Kuil and Carlin have recently reunited for informal practice sessions after van der Kuil’s return to the US from Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
posted by Gallery Ü Cleveland at 7:04 PM
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