“I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain plowland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to where the name ceases to apply?”.

Ursula Le Quin, The Left Hand of Darkness, 1969

In Cradle Orchestra, a solo-exhibition by Copehangen-based artist Katrine Bobek, the colours set a vibrant tone in nine paintings, ensnaring the viewer, and warping in multitudes that appear to be as playful as they are sombre. The folkloric figures inhabit one otherworldly scene inside and after another, forming a condensed milieu that does not care for fixed categories. It is this attitude that lets compositions and an off-centred use of symbols melt seamlessly; the sun, the sky, the clouds all burst out of trembling landscapes with a blustering verve or with a serene simpleness. The inner lens used in shaping these landscapes has seasons of feelings. They fluctuate between severe and joyous sentiments, one could say only opposites by nature and thus kins through the shared gravity of their gestures.

Whoever meddles, whoever tries to dive with their eyes into the deepest layers of paint finds vibrations of colour, details in a continuous motion. By continually applying layers, Bobek lets the failures alchemise, and so they sediment into something that constitutes the seen painting almost as ‘the thing that never was.’ And then comes the coloured figures, the characters observing and inhabiting these worlds where; “Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colours, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.” A quote by Rainer Maria Rilke, so befitting it seems to encompass all the tingling and unnerving sensed through the series that makes Cradle Orchestra.

– Text by Karen Vestergaard Andersen, co-director of ARIEL

Katrine Bobek (b. 1990) is a painter based in Copenhagen, Denmark. She holds a degree from Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Recent exhibitions include; Tuning violet tangles at Pina, 2021, Wien (AT), Star, at Fonda, 2021, Leipzig (DE), 10 at PM/AM Gallery, 2021, London (UK), Between Image and event at Magasinlotus, 2021, Copenhagen (DK) and Mayfly Keeper at Arcway nightlands connector jennifee-see alternate, 2020, Copenhagen (DK), Die neue linje at Bar du Bois, 2018, Wien (AT), Allow me to introduce myself, Pro Temp at Galleri Susanne Ottesen, 2017, København (DK)