Light Transfer of Nature, mirrors, copper, wood

Alicja Kwade is an installation artist whose works often combine heavily processed and raw natural materials. Kwade’s works in installation and sculpture tend to produced with a mathematical, geometric sense of precision.

Gegenwartsdauer, petrified palm trunks varying in size from 250cm to the size of a grain of sand

I really like the tension between this level of straight-edged precision in Kwade’s works, and the inherent imperfection of many of her chosen objects. Stones, chunks of raw wood, and other natural objects provide focal points for constructions of mirrored glass and metal that are based on right angles and exacting specifications. Many of Kwade’s works deal with subjective ideas of space and time – a physical angle that reminds me of work by artists like Amarie Bergman, or Ryoji Ikeda.

In many cases these seemingly disparate materials intersect directly, borrowing aesthetic elements from each other to create a new type of composition – for example, in one work, a series of rough stones is arranged in a well-organized grid, and reproduced as a print within a gallery space.

NACHBILD, 12 speakers positioned around a brass ring