The exhibition “Heat Wave” by Finnish-Swedish artist Petra Lindholm contains various interpretations of mountain landscapes and abstracted reflections on our environment close to a collapse. Petra Lindholm zooms out to geological perspectives, ages or life cycles.
Images of rocky landscapes have been with the artist for quite some time. It started with some negatives she got from her grandfather, shot by a relative about 100 years ago in the Alps, which inspired and finally became a part of Lindholm’s previous project, “For Anne Marie” (2011). In some of her current works, Lindholm has again inserted some private fragments from her family history; this time there are drawings that her mother did when she was expecting her. Narratives about origin of different scales and time lines coexist here; references to ice ages and eons are intermingled with personal references and current social issues.
In Lindholm’s latest works fabric has become a new way to express and visualize different scenes from her moving images – by using multi-layered translucent fabrics. This special layer-to-layer technique developed in the first place in Lindholm’s videos gives a distance and a dreamlike feeling to Lindholm’s work and enables the coexistence of personal and global references and various time horizons: “I research visual memories, thinking patterns, routines, fantasies, dreams, visualisations, hypnosis, repetitive patterns, layer-to-layer-to-layer, how our thoughts and inner monologues are build up, changing all the time, nothing is permanent…” (Petra Lindholm)
Massive rocky landscapes recur in Lindholm’s work, inspired by a longer stay in Kathmandu in Nepal a few years ago. In her video work “Empty Vessels” (2014), developed during the stay, we follow the footsteps and thoughts of people participating in the expeditions climbing the high peaks of the Himalayas. Throughout history, mountains have symbolized constancy, eternity, firmness and stillness. On the spiritual level, mountains symbolize aspira¬tion and renunciation of worldly desires. The mountain here can be seen as a symbol of a general desire that exists in our society today. The dream of reaching the top, being happy for a while when the goal is reached, and then getting on to even greater heights.
Current phenomena that interest the artist are how larger areas of ice, ice mountains floating freely in open water, and permafrost now melt and how traces of past life appear. Perhaps the traces of our own civilization will not be more than an abnormal discoloration in the bedrock about 50,000 years from now. The movement in the image indicates that something will happen, a prolonged period of excessively hot weather is coming…
Petra Lindholm, b.1973 in Karis (Karjaa) in Finland, educated at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm (1996 – 2001), lives and works in Småland in Sweden. She is a Finnish-Swedish cinematographer, continuously exploring and extending her range of techniques and media like video, sound, photography, drawing and textile collage.
Lindholm has been regularly participating in individual and group exhibitions in Sweden, Europe, North America and Asia. Her works can be found in numerous public art collections, among others, Kiasma in Helsinki, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Malmö Konstmuseum, Borås Konstmuseum, ProArtibus Foundation in Finland, and many private collections worldwide. In addition to various national and international prizes and scholarships, in 2006 Petra Lindholm was honoured with the 3rd prize of the prestigious Carnegie Art Award – one of the world’s largest art awards at that time (Carnegie Prize 1998–2014).
Curator: Ewa Bojarowski, COLLECTIVA gallery, Berlin.
Coordinator – Tomasz Zieliński
Supported by: The Swedish Arts Grants Committee (KONSTNÄRSNÄMNDEN)
Images Courtesy of: Galleri Magnus Karlsson, Sztokholm and COLLECTIVA gallery, Berlin.
opening 04.07.2017 6pm
20 Gdańska St.
end 20.08.2017
