PETROGLYPHS

Sale price €0,00
2019 • MATERIALS: DEMOGRAPHICS MAP OF VANG / INK / RED SEWING THREAD / AN OVERSIZED GEOMETRY COMPASS (borrowed from the Technical Museum of Bornholm)


SIZE: 100 x 100 x 300 cm
 

 

PETROGLYPHS is a process work which I started a few years ago when I participated in the Baltic Art project on Bornholm, Denmark. I took my starting point in Bornholm rock carvings, also called Petroglyphs. According to historians, petroglyphs are direct delineations of star constellations in the sky. Each cluster of carvings is as such reflecting a specific astrological constellation of the sky. 

Instead of using the actual formations of individual groupings of petroglyphs, which are often painted red, instead, I took as my point of departure a map of the city of Vang and its inhabitants, which I clustered into an imaginary and para-disical constellation relating each inhabitant and their families to the stars in the sky. 

To portray this connection, I connected a one-meter-long wooden pen or drawing compass, which I hung from the ceiling with 1001 red threads, pointing it onto the city map. 

I have long used thread, and especially red thread, in my work. 

However, in this sketch, the choice of red is often associated with passion, energy, and intensity, which might reflect a desire to convey the profound connection between the people of Vang and the celestial bodies. Additionally, red threads evoke ideas of destiny or fate, emphasizing the interconnectedness of individuals with the constellations and the universe.

The installation was a way of mirroring the connection between the near and the distant, the present and history, man and the universe.  In doing so, I tried to concretize two contradictions that exist only because of one another.

 

CREDIT

Thank you to The Baltic Art Project for inviting me to participate in this cross-cultural residency. 

Thank you for the photographs, taken by Johnny Carlsen.

 

EXHIBITED

2013 Gallery Vang, Bornholm - DK

  

©️ Camilla Howalt

FAQs

Meet the artist

I am a visual artist who likes the sign of languages, repetitions of gestures and blurred images.

This is a photograph of me shaking my head to loosen up any lines, a colour gone mushy or pieces of the puzzle, that might have gotten a bit stuck.

I am fond of Francis Bacon, Eva Hesse, Agnes Martin, Mark Rothko, Giotto, Leonardo da Vinci - I could go on.

On this website you will find my small contribution to the world of art and culture.