Porous Worlds
Hordaland Kunstsenter
26.11.22–22.01.23 Bergen, Norway
The exhibition Porous Worlds presents a cross-section of Pauliina Pöllänen´s approaches to exploring ceramic relief during PhD in artistic research at the Faculty of Art, Music & Design, University of Bergen. The PhD project is an in-depth meditation on the relief form, exploring its intermediate modes between craft and art, sculpture and image, as well as architectural ornament and object.
The provenance of relief dates back thousands of years and spans across human civilizations. It is traditionally seen as belonging to the field of sculpture, modelled or carved, yet containing a background which provides a pictorial space, reaching towards an image. Relief´s inherent material economy affords depicting historical events with crowds, skies with stars, and has the potential of perspective.
Porous Worlds has stemmed from a notion of relief´s gradual decrease from contemporary art after the world wars. Reliefs are undeniably made by contemporary artists today, but there is a lack of research, exhibitions, or writings about relief, - which explains why its position is marginal and status vague.
The exhibited reliefs have their focus at the intersection of the projected, narrative space and the flattened volume of sculptural expression, which oscillates between the flatness of low relief and the sculptural qualities of high relief. The reliefs are exhibited on specially made wooden structures to facilitate different positions created by representational conditions, leaning or hanging, sometimes allowing the viewer to look through them.
Pöllänen´s reliefs are in many ways imbued with serendipity, ruminating the experience of perception, recollection and engaging with multiple worlds. Many of the pieces derive their subject matter from the presence of memories which are perceived as images, like porous worlds, which glide through each other, touching and forming a new image.
She is interested in the intersection of the everyday and the metaphorical, and seeks to mine these existential modes and atmospheric representations that embrace the mystical with occasional referential specificity. Her sculptural practice is rooted in the language of clay, and it explores what kind of exchanges can arise through it.
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Images by the courtesy of Hordaland Kunstsenter, 2023.
Hordaland Kunstsenter
26.11.22–22.01.23 Bergen, Norway
The exhibition Porous Worlds presents a cross-section of Pauliina Pöllänen´s approaches to exploring ceramic relief during PhD in artistic research at the Faculty of Art, Music & Design, University of Bergen. The PhD project is an in-depth meditation on the relief form, exploring its intermediate modes between craft and art, sculpture and image, as well as architectural ornament and object.
The provenance of relief dates back thousands of years and spans across human civilizations. It is traditionally seen as belonging to the field of sculpture, modelled or carved, yet containing a background which provides a pictorial space, reaching towards an image. Relief´s inherent material economy affords depicting historical events with crowds, skies with stars, and has the potential of perspective.
Porous Worlds has stemmed from a notion of relief´s gradual decrease from contemporary art after the world wars. Reliefs are undeniably made by contemporary artists today, but there is a lack of research, exhibitions, or writings about relief, - which explains why its position is marginal and status vague.
The exhibited reliefs have their focus at the intersection of the projected, narrative space and the flattened volume of sculptural expression, which oscillates between the flatness of low relief and the sculptural qualities of high relief. The reliefs are exhibited on specially made wooden structures to facilitate different positions created by representational conditions, leaning or hanging, sometimes allowing the viewer to look through them.
Pöllänen´s reliefs are in many ways imbued with serendipity, ruminating the experience of perception, recollection and engaging with multiple worlds. Many of the pieces derive their subject matter from the presence of memories which are perceived as images, like porous worlds, which glide through each other, touching and forming a new image.
She is interested in the intersection of the everyday and the metaphorical, and seeks to mine these existential modes and atmospheric representations that embrace the mystical with occasional referential specificity. Her sculptural practice is rooted in the language of clay, and it explores what kind of exchanges can arise through it.
Images by the courtesy of Hordaland Kunstsenter, 2023.