Natalia Gutman is an independent curator and art historian who offers curatorial concepts, group exhibitions and solo shows writes about my galactic paintings.
Annette Falk Lund was born in Ribnitz-Damgarten in the former GDR, and moved to Denmark in 1993. For more than 25 years Falk Lund has primarily been occupied with narrative painting. Around the year 2015 she began to be interested in abstract use of form and reduction to the bare minimum. She began to experiment with the challenges imposed by that, and transformed them to stumbling blocks and reconditional rules that took her work to a whole new level.
The state of emergency that the world underwent in the course of 2020 incited Falk Lund to reasses her approach to the painting profession. The usual ways were blocked, isolation and tranquillity were the sources of a kind of restarting process. „What are the most important elements, what can be left out, and how can I grasp the Here and Now?“ These are questions shaping our times and relations, and they constitute a new background for Falk Lund‘s artistic endeavour.
Previously, Falk Lund‘s paintings were characterized by a gaudy abundance of colours, figures, and anecdotes. The richness of colours and harmonic re-combination is still prevalent, but the canvas has turned black, and the colour chart is being reduced to two or three elements, all the while having the canvas lying flat on the floor. Falk Lund has engaged in an increasingly free form, where improvisation and contemplation are the driving forces. Not principle nor planning, but sensuality and spontaneity take the front seat. Dried-in brushes and acquisiton of „wrong“ bonding agents have turned into a welcome inspiration for letting loose.
The enjoyment and renewal originating from the confrontation with unusable tools or paint that is too runny turned out to be a profound boost of productivity and positivity for Falk Lund. Observing and dealing with the proceedings on the canvas led to a renewed and altered dialogue with the actual artwork. It‘s the creation itself that lends charactertom it, and accepting the fact that not everything can be improved by micro- organisation has been an exciting exoneration for Falk Lund.
At the same time it required quite some courage of Falk Lund to indulge in the abstract use of form. Total loss of control is not anything she regards as interesting. If everything could be possible, the result would be indifference. For Falk Lund the keywords are immersion, dedication and embracement of the unpredictable within the scope of a few predetermined ideas. But she avoids to turn these into rules or concepts- it is that small intervention into the process that matters, with body and senses serving as guides.
Quietness, focus, and slowness have taught Falk Lund to give her works an intense thoughtfulness. A gesture that is returned in the form of acceptance and largess. Not every creation turns out well. Uniqueness happens spontaneously, and cannot be reproduced. And that‘s exactly how we perceive Falk Lund‘s black works. For some they are deep and dark, and for others they‘re colourful dynamic abstractions- an artistic encounter truly in its own right.
