By showing the group exhibition EVERYDAY LIFE Galleri Tom Christoffersen welcomes you to a humane small talk with an edge. The stories, in the simple figurative paintings by Harry Pye (UK), Krista Rosenkilde and Andreas Schulenburg (D/DK) are told at eye level and through elements known from caricature drawings, fairy tales and comic strips.
“You looks good you must be doing fine” – “Yes I have had a haircut I am feeling just fine actually”. The grammatically incorrect quote is from a conversation full of commonplaces between a fox and a hen, which in the series “Reven og hønen” (The fux and the hen) by Andreas Schulenburg ends up in a fatal result. Harry Pye uses text in his works as well. The paintings are often collaborative pieces done with his friends. Among friends happen to be a comedian who have stopped being funny, young British Muslims who’ve been shot at by the police, a former chess champion who has lost his concentration and a magician who has lost his confidence. With a sense of humour and a caring approach Harry Pye presents characters in the middle of existential contemplations. Krista Rosenkilde is like Andreas Schulenburg and Harry Pye not afraid of using the banal. But she puts certain cultural identities into play by working from a distance instead of up close. She paints bittersweet symbols on tradition and everyday life as she works with classical oppositions such as culture vs. nature and dangerous vs. harmless etc. It is exactly between these categorical oppositions and in the middle of the many clichés on everyday life that Rosenkilde points at the grey zone of contemporary living. A condition of “both-and” as incarnated by he idyllic safety of “The Shire” and it’s at the same time closed and excluding character.
EVERYDAY LIFE touches upon a certain kind of national identity and petite bourgeois self-conception and ways of acting. Or minor life-crises, joys and reflections, which prevents outlook and displaces an interest in problems affecting humanity on a larger scale. Despite the edgy issues the paintings are light and clear rather than condemning. Exactly this humoristic “go-happy”-strategy seems in all its absurdity to lower the parades and dissolve the facades from within.
Harry Pye (1973/UK) is represented by Sartorial Contemporary Art, London. The artist graduated from Winchester School of Art in1995.
Krista Rosenkilde (1981/DK) is represented by Galleri Tom Christoffersen. She will graduate from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen in 2009.
Andreas Schulenburg (1973/D+DK) is represented by Mogadishni. The artist graduated from the Royal Academy of fine Arts, Copenhagen in 2005.
Heinz Schmöller (1975/D) exhibits in Cube. He is repesented by Komet Berlin. The artist graduated from HfBK Dresden in 2006.