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Join us for an evening of conversation on the fascinating topic of the concept of beauty in art in collaboration with UNFOLD Advisory and Helle Moalem.
Painter Emily Gernild and photographer Anne Prytz Schaldemose meet in a conversation about beauty in art, challenging the notion of ‘beautiful’ as harmless, toothless and merely decorative.
For centuries, beauty was seen as a virtue in the arts. From the height of Greek art to the Renaissance to Victorian times, beauty was viewed as an eternal, transcendent quality, one that was highly valued in art. It allowed a transcendence from the real world into an ideal world.
But what is the role of beauty today? Have we shifted to an extent where utility has taken prevalence over beauty in life and in art? Beauty in contemporary art is often deemed unnecessary. After all the horrors of the last century, and the continued horrors of this one, can we still believe in the value and goodness of the beautiful.
About Emily Gernild
Emily Gernild (1985) graduated from the Funen Art Academy in 2016. She is represented by Galleri Bo Bjerggard and Schwarz Contemporary Berlin.
Emily Gernild’s work often focuses on the everyday things we surround ourselves with in the home. These objects appear in glimpses in her compositions, serving as the key to bringing us deeper into the paintings. Fabulation is constant in her work, which vividly encourages you to continue looking. Gernild’s ability to combine the familiar with the abstract while also achieving a compositional balance is unique. As an artist, Gernild is interested in dreams and shadow emotions such as anger, envy, grief, etc. and how the energy that is generated by these emotional states can act as a stimulus.
Gernild’s set of motifs acts like an internal landscape built up from just a few figurative elements. The raw, unprimed canvas is often used actively as part of the composition. Emily Gernild’s paintings are deeply bodily. They breathe, swell and live with their dynamic touches. The plants are organic, the colors resemble blood and plant color - the darkness is always present.
About Anne Prytz Schaldemose
Anne Schaldemose (1971) Photographer at Rigmor Mydtskov, photography student at Kofoed Schiller, photography assistent for director of photography at Politiken, Per Folkver, School of Visual Arts and Copenhagen Technical School, Photography Department.
Nature is a recurring motif in Anne Schaldemose’s photographic work. The connection between the earthly and the heavenly, the extent of creation and the extent of time. In her work she is drawn to the beauty of her surroundings. Not the sunset nor the dramatic sky but motifs that hold beauty in a quieter way. A plowed field in pale grey of March. The patterns of cultivated landscapes, The trees, the shapes and details of branches and leaves, the forests and the incomprehensible connectedness of the undergrowth. A recognition of the order of things.