LEONARD FORSLUND

Yellow Monument

Galerie Mikael Andersen welcomes you to the opening of Leonard Forslund's solo exhibition Yellow monument on Friday March 15, 2024, from 5 to 7 pm, featuring new paintings.

All the paintings in Leonard Forslund's new exhibition are yellow. There are occasional black contours; otherwise, everything is yellow. Many of the motifs are common in the digital world, consisting of details of various emojis - small symbols used in text messages. Unlike the smooth digital miniature symbols, Forslund's paintings are not smooth. The paintings are characterized by layers of colored wax running down the canvases. While the digital emojis we know should be easily readable, Forslund's large yellow works are ambiguous. The otherwise small symbols, as we know them from our mobile phones, are transformed in the paintings into signs that almost shout out the symbols' meanings. In the paintings, emojis are enlarged into monuments for a simplified and emotional form of communication, characteristic of our digital age.

Among the emoji depictions are works with more personal motifs. They have the same simplified form, but the motifs and meanings are unclear. In one work, an ear appears, in another a foot, and in a third a couple of letters, but otherwise, it is not possible to extract a coherent meaning from the paintings. There is something sketch-like about the motifs, as if there is a lack of a definition and structure.

Forslund calls the exhibition a monument, but what are the paintings supposed to be a monument for? The usual monument commemorates a person or an event. In Yellow Monument, it is not clear what is being commemorated. Dead insects are stuck in the layers of wax in the artworks. Perhaps it is these dead creatures that the exhibition forms a monument to? Does the signal color yellow help emphasize the urgency?

In addition to the paintings, the exhibition also includes a text by Forslund mounted on the gallery's window facing the street. Here, Forslund mentions both the color yellow’s many connotations and the biodiversity crisis. Is there any connection between these and paintings of emojis? In Forslund's conceptual paintings, they are nevertheless connected and become, as art, a monument to their own time.

For further information about the exhibition and press images, please contact the gallery at phone number 33 33 05 12 or email: cph@mikaelandersen.com. The exhibition ends on Saturday, April 27, 2024. Opening hours: Tuesday-Friday 12-6 pm, Saturday 11 am-3 pm.