SØREN SEJR FROM ASHES TO PAINT

26 May - 10 August 2023 Galleria SARP

SARP is pleased to present Søren Sejr, abstract artist from Denmark. This exhibition titled, From Ashes to Paint, consists of ten paintings and a discerning site-specific installation. He is inspired by the architecture and anthropological artefacts of space. He develops his abstractionist approach by integrating his space with the social identity and cultural conception of landscape. His painting approach is complemented with a site-specific installation for SARP Gallery a collection of objects and a steel-based crane structure that was used to lift bags filled with hazelnuts as a metaphor of the Gallery’s space past. His analysis of the Anthropocene is incorporated in his language of space expressed in objects sourced from the exploration of space.

He aims to disentangle two quite different usages of the term landscape 1) the way of seeing and 2) the natural and cultural environment of Sicily. The paintings are created with layering of surfaces, signs, exalted by the unequalled materiality of paint. The division of the pictorial surface and the distribution of color according to the minimalist language that explores the performativity of color itself and the tension are highlighted in the relationship between color and light in an unadorned aesthetic that allows the work to reverberate within their cornice. The different distributions of rectangular and square modules on the surface generate emotional vibrations in the observer and a dynamic effect that alters the optical perception.
The black color becomes plastic through the spatula strokes that define its materiality and thickness similar to volcanic landscapes. This chromatic dichotomy between colors, but above all between black and white, gives intensity and an essentiality of content to the canvases and works of Søren Sejr. Søren Sejr's "stories" do not exclude the sign, inserted in the privileged space of the canvas and of its installations, they express us annotations, traces of daily life, references of circles in the black sand, drawings on the mirror, scribbles of meaning, bird's step, the perception of being present, the act of chasing of the last sun that make the observer reflect and transport them to an interpretative level, beyond the visible and the image of reality. This set of stories are reinforced by his relationship with the space and translated into this novel site-specific installation. His site-specific installation created exclusively for this exhibition include old architectural elements used in constructions, iron crane, wood pieces sourced and carefully chosen by the artist. At the center of the room, an iron crane illustrates the process of vertical and intertwines lines found in industrial design from the post-war period. The intertwined structure is a references of old construction techniques used to build vaulted ceilings in Sicilian palazzo and the lying iron structure lying on the floor of the second room were old pesticides steel structure to be used in farmland. This set of corresponding materials speak to the language of sings, marks and metaphors to be found in his paintings.To summarise, this exhibition allows us to reflect on the complex relationship between real environment and the natural blending with the process of painting.