Every Time I Close My Eyes represents an entirely new body of work. Its motifs are those that have appeared in painting through the ages — still lifes, landscapes, portraits and nudes — and recall the works of particular artists. A full length depiction of a contemporarily dressed woman whose skirt is made out of swirls of blue paint summons the decorative portraits of Gustav Klimt, for instance, whilst the girl in Edvard Munch’s Puberty is recast as a tan-marked woman bearing a blithe expression on her face.
Bjerger has described the subject of her paintings as the ‘tool’ with which to engage with the works, selecting images that exude ‘a boundless quality as well as compositional strength.’ Similarly, the size of her pictures (several in this exhibition are far larger than ever before) impact on the reading of them: they demand to be looked at both from afar and up close, and from different positions within the space, inviting a physical involvement from the viewer as the exhibition is experienced as a whole. Through all of the means available to painting — the handling of medium, composition and scale — Bjerger personalises her imagery, compounding familiarity with further familiarity until it becomes strange.
Opening
Saturday 10th of September, 17.00 – 20.00 hrs