On the occasion of the exhibition Vertical Matter by Henrik Strömberg, Dorothée Nilsson Gallery presents a new body of work conceived by merging the use of photography, sculptural volumes and re-evaluated materials.
The co-existence of the various media permits the production of different series. Sculptural pieces, photographs, and collages are converging into a self-sustainable biotope where each component becomes part of the whole. The extension of Strömberg’s practice, from the reconfiguration of pre-existing objects to the production of hand-blown glass pieces, suggests the idea of a moment fixed: an action materialized from within.
While the photographs are depicting ephemeral abstraction of objects and natural elements, the expanding volumes – the core of the sculptures- are shaped and multiplied through the use of glass grid structures and plaster moulds. Linked to the idea of cellular division/mitosis, the various components are kept as witnesses of the process. The matter of the volumes, vertical, and augmented by paper stacks, expands as a layered compost.
# 5. The compost is: An oracle (a place that speaks or murmurs); the original assemblage; metamorphosis; a passage between the grid and the soil, between the actual and the possible; a temporary refuge.
Extract from THE COMPOST MANIFESTO, 2nd version, Jens Soneryd 2018