Vinyl tempera on wood, 244×122 cm

 

“The things we want are transformative, and we don’t know or only think we know what is on the other side of that transformation.”
— Rebecca Solnit

In conversation, the work of Stockholm-based Susann Brännström and Berlin-based Sonja Gerdes complements the other’s process. They both work in what could be called the realm of hyper abstraction with the work left to be deciphered and interpreted by the viewer. Yet, each piece might be seen as a kind of codex, a key to understanding patterns and links between works and between artist. Brännström and Gerdes are interested in creating a space for consciousness and contemplation to enter.

Both artists explore the abstract amorphous, translating images that are only available within the mind and the spirit into worldly forms. They compose forms that extend beyond their material parameters to engage with irrepressible or invisible constructs. There is clearly a language in the existence of organic shapes and fluid marks that meander across Brännström’s wood panels or Gerdes’s distinctly different sculptural materials. Each work builds on another to create a space for the visualization of mental processes — brain synapses colliding and communicating into endless connections and directions.

By creating a world out of the unseen, Brännström and Gerdes open a space of reality that is not generally available to vision or to language, though there are terms for it: indescribable, ineffable, impossible, conceptual, metaphysical. Through their unique vision, Brännström and Gerdes translate ideas into material that remains abstract, inspiring a sense of the transformation via meditative state. In their generative abstract actions they create a mystification of painting and sculpture meant to resonate over time. They do not whisper their secrets to the viewer but communicate them telepathically, if one is listening.

Gladys-Katherina Hernando
Independent curator and writer based in Los Angeles Los Angeles, 16 March, 2014