Kasper Sonne at Quartz Studio

October 31, 2022–January 14, 2023

Quartz Studio presents Your Feelings Are Wrong, the first solo show in Turin by the Danish artist Kasper Sonne (Copenhagen, Denmark, 1974).

“The new paintings are as much about the large abstract, or at least abstracted parts, as they are about figure and narrative. […] My interests can be identified as a fascination with the destructive elements in man and nature, combined with an overall feeling of displacement and melancholy. […] By man and nature, I mean the destructive urges in mankind, like in the theory of the death drive, and the violence of nature.”

Kasper Sonne returns to the figurative work of his early years with three large paintings, Your Feelings Are Wrong, There’s Nothing You Can Do to Me (That I Haven’t Already Done), both from 2021, and Flag (2022). However, he keeps the details to a minimum in favor of a synthesis that has a quality of primitivism and a return to order. The major characters are consistently consistent in the sharply defined space that the colors almost make two-dimensional. The hues, which are those of the Italian Transavantgarde, are sparse yet powerful. Two boxers and a child in soccer shorts are the paintings’ themes, and they are elevated to the status of modern archetypes. Their expressionless visage and seclusion suggest a psychological rather than a physical loneliness. These presences make universal the human sense of displacement in nature/the surrounding space, in a constant emotional oscillation underlying the death drive.

Kasper Sonne (Copenhagen, Denmark, 1974) graduated from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation in 2000 and has been living and working between Copenhagen and New York for the past fifteen years. In a new series of large- and small-scale works on linen, Sonne has reverted to the figurative style of his early career after having worked primarily within an abstract visual framework. In his “THM” series from the late 2010s, Sonne produced a number of collage-like paintings by applying New York Times pages on canvas and progressively adding thin washes of paint over top of them until nearly all of the linguistic cues were completely buried. Sonne’s gradual return to using more overtly figurative elements was unavoidably spurred by the prolonged consideration of “newsworthy” photographs that this lengthy and systematic procedure required.His most recent works frequently feature vast, lonely landscapes that explore the psychological intricacies of solitude and scale up personal emotional emotions to seismic levels. Through the deliberate construction and deconstruction of reality, Sonne has consistently explored how we understand our surroundings and attempt to make sense of the world in which we live. Kasper Sonne’s exhibition history includes solo exhibitions at museums and galleries such as Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles, US (2022); A Hug From The Art World, New York, US (2019); Kaikai Kiki Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (2018); HEART Museum, Denmark (2016); The Arts Club, London, UK (2015); West, Den Haag, Netherlands (2014); Brand New Gallery, Milan, Italy (2014); SALTS, Basel, Switzerland (2013); The Hole, New York, US (2013); Primo Piano, Paris, France (2012); SAPS museum, Mexico City, Mexico (2010) and V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark (2009), as well as group exhibitions at Brigade Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark (2021), Collaborations Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark (2018), Palazzo Fruscione, Salerno, Italy (2016), Fergus McCaffrey in New York, US (2015); Kunstverein Kolnberg, Cologne (2015), Germany; Den Frie – Center of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, Denmark (2015); Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, US (2014); National Museum of Capodimonte, Naples, Italy (2014); Centre d’art Contemporain, Clichy, France (2014); Sean Kelly Gallery, New York, US (2014); The Moving Museum, Dubai, Emirates (2013), Gl. Holtegaard – gallery for contemporary and modern art, Denmark (2013); Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2012); Bass Museum of Art, Miami, US (2011); Museo de San Carlos, Mexico City, Mexico (2008); Seventeen Gallery, London, UK (2007) and Galerie Krinzinger, Wien, Austria (2006). Sonne’s works are included in several public collections, such as Fuban Art Foundations, Taiwan, David Roberts Art Foundation, London and HEART Museum, Herning, Denmark.

Quartz Studio
Via Giulia di Barolo, 18/D
10124 Turin
Italy

T +39 338 429 0085
F +39 011 826 4640
[email protected]

www.quartzstudio.net
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