Galerie Mikael Andersen offers the possibility of getting acquainted with two painters, who finished their education at their respective art academies this year – Thorup in Copenhagen and Bornstück in Berlin.

The anatomy of the double exhibition should be taken seriously and should not be seen as a curated whole. Both artists paint, but that is as far as comparisons go – more or less anyway.

Camilla Thorup paints people. Human beings interacting with each other: they fight, ride on the back, balance, they are close to one another. But the closeness is very much only a physical closeness, whether it is in a fight or someone riding someone else’s back. Because the characters seem rather mechanical and stiff – almost alienated – towards the situation they are in and the people they are with; absent in their presence. Thorup’s works are characterized by a played down and controlled simplicity in their expression that waves back and forth between the sad and the humoristic.

Fritz Bornstück paints everything, and he does it with a wildness and volume. The paintings are loud, they call on the viewer through their expressivity, energy and humour. “Come here you cowardly sculpture,” says a fish with boxing gloves on. Apparently it is ready to pick a fight with a media it regards as competing and maybe also with the passing viewer, who does not dare to make sense of the painting.