(UK)

I am a Danish artist working with video art. My work is a slow motion sequence, filmed in and under water, manipulated digitally in color, perception and with a musicalish soundtrack. The works are a surreal reflection on our reality, open for interpretation and they do wake emotions.

 

 

 

 

Text

by Kira Moss, Master of Arts in Modern Culture and Cultural Communication

 

Christina Maj Lundqvist (b. 1972) a Danish artist working in video art, painting

on canvas and paper and light sculptures/installations. All of Christina’s

work is centred around the motif of a person submerged into water and

seen below the surface. Her art depicts mirrored reflections and an almost

disturbing dissolving of known matter.

 

Artistic Practice

All of Christina’s works begins with the underwater filming of a person

moving in water using only natural light and handheld camera. These

videos become the raw material for both paintings, video artworks and

light installations.

- The paintings are done with drawing ink, which not only depicts the

 water but mimes it when the uncontainable liquid dries up.

- The video artworks are sequences moulded digitally by changing

colours, using filters and creating musical sounds, without editing

out dirt and other particles in the water.

- The light installations are made by coloured LED cables integrated

in silicon. The silicon is formed and laid out to dry in patterns simulating water surface ripples.

 

Reaching out for the fleeting moment

In her video art Lundqvist shows the movement when one moment dissolves into another. The saturated colours, the slow motion and the loss of gravity gives an unusual sense of substance. The colours are not only mesmerising they also create a constant shift in attention, making it even more impossible to maintain a single impression.

 

In her paintings Christina Maj Lundqvist captures the singular moment. You have time to focus on the details shown by the artist, and the often very large format and the ink’s imitation of water can for some induce a bodily sensation. Looking at the work, trying to recognise what we see, we become aware of the limitations in our understanding as this is only a single split second in an unknown sequence and as such it only gives us a glimpse of a totality we cannot contemplate.

 

The light installations supplementing the videos and painting also presents the captured moment, but they are echoing the video material in a very substantial way. We recognise the motif and we are drawn to the light, but this is more manipulated, this is too frozen and the absence of movement becomes intrusive both in the contrast of the solid material as in the feeling that this is in fact not one singular moment but a less specific moment, and so the urge to see the next moment cannot be fulfilled.

 

The works of Christina Maj Lundqvist are immediately pleasant, and they appeal to our curiosity but in doing so they also harbour an element of uneasiness as the known become obscure. As spectators we are plunged into the water and from below the surface, we cannot uphold even an illusion of capturing the full picture of the element surrounding the person. We reach out for the split second but find ourselves in a fleeting moment.

 

Check this link for photos and details of her exhibitions:  www.christinalundqvist.com/cv.html

 

 

(DK)

Artistic Statement

“Vi rækker ud efter nuet og befinder os i et flygtigt øjeblik.”

Vand er et gennemgående element i mine værker og mit kunstneriske virke. I mit undersøgende afsæt arbejder jeg med afspejlingen af menneskets facetter. Jeg er optaget af usete og skjulte realiteter. I vandet optager jeg et flygtigt, forvrænget og spejlet menneske, lige under overfladen, hvor flere verdener mødes; den snoede spejlning på undersiden af overfladen, undervandsverdenen og den opløste virkelighed over overfladen set igennem vandet.

 

Mine videoer er slowmotion; et farve- og tyngdekraft ophævet univers hvor den musikalske lyd og billedet flyder sammen og sætter mennesket til observation i et ukendt verdensbilled. Den digitale sekvens er kommet til live og formet som et maleri.

 

Jeg arbjeder med video, maleri, lysskulpturer og mere.

 

Vand er i konstant forandring, det er ukontrollerbart, det forvrænger

og opløser det velkendte menneske og dets omgivelser i et flygtigt øjeblik.

 

Født 1972 i København.

2014-2019 Kunstskolen Spektrum, Copenhagen,

2012-2013 Københavns kunstskole.

 

 

 

Portrait video by Astrid Espenhain