FOLDED REALITIES
By Tania Elena de Gier Gustafsson, Hans Alf Gallery
ENG: Anne Torpe's canvases are populated by female figures who appear to inhabit a parallel reality. For Torpe, the canvas is not a passive or static surface. She treats it as something alive—working with the pictorial plane so that colours and forms flow in and out of one another like waves of fabric or thought. Through contour lines, figures, outstretched arms and legs, and eyes that look straight at us, she creates shifts in texture, tempo, and atmosphere. The result is a dynamic, almost rhythmic experience of the picture plane, where our gaze is carefully guided by the composition’s inner movements and structures.
The women’s bodies possess a sculptural quality—as if they too have been modelled from the soft layers of paint and the percieved folds of the canvas. Their shapes reverberate throughout the works—in organically curved lines, ornamental patterns, or gentle hills in the background.
It is through both this shifting surface and the female figures—more sculptural than flat—that Torpe develops her distinct painterly language. Each work stands as a self contained cosmos, while also unfolding as part of her larger artistic universe.
We are drawn into the artist’s paintings as if into a mirror—one that reflects our world: the everyday, the familiar thoughts, actions, desires, joys, and trivialities—but its reflected in a displaced, exaggerated, and fantastical form. The colours are imaginative and the figures dreamy, while the perspective seamlessly glides between outer and inner worlds. The female bodies seem to turn inward, folding in on themselves in acts of self exploration—while their inner landscapes unfold in the rest of the picture. For each female caracter is not merely a figure, but a narrative in itself: her state of mind is mirrored in the background and foreground, in ornaments, fields of colour, and contours. It is in everything that surrounds her that we begin to sense the stories—hers, and perhaps also our own.
With Folded Realities, Anne Torpe opens a visual and emotional space where reality is twisted, folded, and transformed into new stories about being, seeing, and being seen. Perhaps a more captivating world is hidden in the folds of reality. The exhibition thus offers a dreamy narrative of the everyday—a different understanding of the lived life.
FOLDED REALITIES
Af Tania Elena de Gier Gustafsson, Hans Alf Gallery
DK: Anne Torpes lærreder er befolket af kvindelige figurer, der ser ud til at bebo en parallel virkelighed. For Torpe er lærredet ikke en passiv eller statisk overflade. Hun behandler det som noget levende – hun arbejder med billedfladen, så farver og former flyder ind og ud af hinanden som bølger af stof eller tanker. Gennem konturlinjer, figurer, udstrakte arme og ben og øjne, der ser direkte på os, skaber hun skift i tekstur, tempo og atmosfære. Resultatet er en dynamisk, næsten rytmisk oplevelse af billedfladen, hvor vores blik omhyggeligt ledes af kompositionens indre bevægelser og strukturer.
Kvindernes kroppe besidder en skulpturel kvalitet – som om de også er blevet modelleret ud fra de bløde lag af maling og lærredets illuderede 'folder'. Deres former genlyder i alle værkerne – i organisk buede linjer, ornamentale mønstre eller blide bakker i baggrunden.
Det er gennem både denne skiftende overflade og de kvindelige figurer – der er mere skulpturelle end flade – at Torpe udvikler sit distinkte maleriske sprog. Hvert værk står som et selvstændigt kosmos, samtidig med at det udfolder sig som en del af hendes større kunstneriske univers.
Vi drages ind i kunstnerens malerier som ind i et spejl – et, der reflekterer vores verden: hverdagen, de velkendte tanker, handlinger, ønsker, glæder og trivialiteter – men det reflekteres i en forskudt, overdrevet og fantastisk form. Farverne er fantasifulde, og figurerne drømmende, mens perspektivet ubesværet glider mellem ydre og indre verdener. De kvindelige kroppe synes at vende indad, folde sig sammen i selvudforskning – mens deres indre landskaber udfolder sig i resten af billedet. For hver kvindelig karakter er ikke blot en figur, men en fortælling i sig selv: hendes sindstilstand afspejles i baggrunden og forgrunden, i ornamenter, farvefelter og konturer. Det er i alt, der omgiver hende, at vi begynder at fornemme historierne – hendes, og måske også vores egne.
Med Folded Realities åbner Anne Torpe et visuelt og følelsesmæssigt rum, hvor virkeligheden vrides, foldes og transformeres til nye historier om at være, at se og at blive set. Måske gemmer der sig en mere fængslende verden i virkelighedens folder. Udstillingen byder således på en drømmende fortælling om hverdagen – en anderledes forståelse af det levede liv.