OSL contemporary is proud to present its second solo exhibition by Norwegian artist Jone Kvie. With an ongoing interest in the workings of the world and our place in it, Kvie explores both the means and the limitations of sculpture by addressing various phenomena in the physical world and in society, many of which we still struggle to understand. How can we know or experience something abstract as a material fact and through this contemplate its significance?
In earlier sculptural projects, Kvie has examined natural phenomena in its many forms, from mineral formations found on earth to meteors and star clusters found in the vast expanse of the universe. Through the artist’s process of material translation, Kvie’s works gain an ambiguous presence in time and space, often evoking the unknown, hinting at what we yet do not know. Any relationship to their source material, be it the natural sciences, popular culture, or art history, remains inconclusive. Whilst Kvie strives to distil complex and often abstract concepts into concrete forms, he also expresses a desire to arrive at works that can be observed and experienced on their own terms – sculptures that feel immediate in how they occupy space through their mere presence in terms of materiality, volume and gravity.
In his most recent series of sculptures, on view at OSL contemporary, Kvie contemplates how a society's concept of the human body informs the construction of that society's architecture and infrastructure. Second Messenger #4 (2016) and Second Messenger #5 (2017) both feature crude basalt rocks and cast aluminium components. While mindful of their structural properties and immediate presence in the gallery space, Kvie also considers the poetic potential of his materials. The sculptures’ aluminium elements are cast from the artist’s plywood constructions and as well as from found scraps of packing material, an artistic process in reflecting the construction of buildings and urban environments. Basalt is a volcanic rock with high calcium content, a compound that is essential to the skeleton as well as the central nervous system. The title of the series reflects calcium’s role when neurotransmitters in our brains communicate with the rest of the body, a so-called Second Messenger. In Recall to mind of a long forgotten presence IV (2016), Kvie confronts not only the aforementioned challenge of presenting cosmic phenomena on a human scale, in this case a nebula, but also how, given that the closest nebula is over 1000 light years away, we can only know its form by observing light waves that first started their voyage through space over a thousand years ago.
Jone Kvie presents the viewer with a mise-en-scène of various objects, sparking multiple associations that never congeal into a set narrative. And as suggested by the ominous titles, Kvie’s sculptures reflect something uncertain, something just outside the grasp of our imagination.
