Johanne Rude Lindegaard
09 Jun 2023 – 08 Jul 2023
Formation Gallery is pleased to present Johanne Rude Lindegaard's solo exhibition The Pull and the Push, which pulls and pushes the viewer in many different directions and lets us float in and out of illusion and reality.
The exhibition title for Johanne Rude Lindegaard's first exhibition in Formation Gallery is taken from Kate Bush's song Reaching Out, where Bush sings "The pull and the push of it all", which for Rude Lindegaard is about how the universe and all its elements, as well as people and nature, casually fluctuating and at the same time both pull and push each other - like pieces in a larger cosmic play. When the tide rises and falls as if it were the world's breath or heartbeat and we as humans swirl around in the unimaginable infinity of the universe. We approach each other and then push each other away. We are drawn and repelled - the pull and push of it all.
Rude Lindegaard investigates complex and tough comprehensible dimensions - existential and philosophical questions that make one dizzy. Her paintings move between the macro level and the micro level. The correlation between the universe and humans. The distant and incomprehensible - the close and intimate. Rude Lindegaard is interested in opposites and combining and connecting them. The present in relation to the past. Rude Lindegaard is particularly interested in Illusion and abstraction both as a painting technique and as a philosophical concept. Although illusion, by definition, is intangible and unreal, it takes up a lot of mental space and controls an incredible amount of our physical world and life. Why are we so preoccupied with illuding the physical world?
Rude Lindegaard finds inspiration across some of the major historical currents – from the high-flying existentialist and philosophical thoughts of antiquity to the realistic reproduction of the Renaissance to the baroque's preoccupation with evading reality, by consciously creating an illusion that is overwhelming, alluring, and dreamlike. To all these historical directions, she opposes an investigation of abstract painting's insistence on material and form, including the breaking of illusion. Rude Lindegaard wants to create a space where precisely the philosophical and existential questions can be examined and expressed. Where you are conscious and unconscious at the same time - it is when you move into the unknown that you are open to new thoughts and new perspectives. Perhaps Rude Lindegaard's works are the materialization of the fact that we need both, to feel, to be present – to sense and dream at the same time.
Rude Lindegaard is technically extremely well-versed. In addition to having attended the art academy, she has a bachelor's degree from the design school - and before that, learned the traditional building painting techniques; trompe l'oeil painting, veining, marbling, and grisaille. Furthermore, she has been on a residency in Rome on several occasions, which has certainly fueled her fascination with the classical craft of design, material, imitation, and illusion.
Johanne Rude Lindegaard (b. 1987) graduated from the Funen Art Academy and Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien (Expanded Pictorial Space by Professor Daniel Richter). She received the 15 June Foundation's Honorary Award for her final works exhibited at Brandts Kunstmuseum in 2017. She has exhibited at, among others, fAN Kunstverein in Vienna, OK Corral in Copenhagen, and at the gallery Pablo's Birthday in New York. She has since had her first major institutional solo exhibition Shadows in Pieces at O-Overgaden in 2021, and has made her first permanent decoration Sensibility Sea in Østre Landsret in 2022.
