© Justin Bower

‘The image as a frame fixates one particular perspective. This is how the legendary art historian Leon Battista Alberti defined an image. This notion is to be reconsidered regarding Justin Bower’s paintings. Here, the image space is not defined, not localized and just as little fixated. Instead, the painting due to its modularity and optical complexity seems to fixate the beholder. The image content is being abstracted and dissolved in a dynamic process. Ephemeral, graphic modules serve as structural components and are recalling imaging techniques such as biometric facial recognition. They are in vivid interaction with painterly, almost lyrical passages. Bower’s pieces illustrate a changing concept of the image. Pictures nowadays are fluid, dynamic and in a state of flux. Just as it is the case with the individual’s possibilities to identify and create a self-concept. In some way they are offering a portrayal of the image itself and establish it as a nonverbal medium of knowledge, which has the potential for social criticism.
The digital’ is blending with the notion of self and society, it is catalyser for a change within functional, but also ethical and emotional systems. This is envisioned employing the multitude of figures in Bower’s pieces, that are becoming one and enable a collective gaze.’ - Artist text for G-ALLERY

© Kirstine Reiner Hansen

‘A multitude of directional dynamics, flat colour areas alternating with precise, figurative descriptions; Kirstine Reiner Hansen emphasizes the special features artistic space offers to our perception. As colour passages and spatial breaks prevent a coherent narrative, the view opens up for other levels of expression, which are created intuitively through light direction, colour and composition and are set in tension with the figurative. She primarily uses oil paint, which she alternately uses in a gestural-expressionistic, geometrizing and mimetic manner. The resulting pentimenti add compositional value and are implemented into the unsystematic, free rhythm of the pictorial space. By shading the colour values, she creates a smooth and harmonious range.’ - Artist text for G-ALLERY