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GALLERI MOLEKYL

Niki Cervin och Gitte Eidslott, 12/11-5/12 2021

I Niki Cervins måleri är inget stilla. Breda, vågiga färgstråk dras mot varandra, kolliderar och avlägsnar sig i ett ständigt flöde. Tonerna är denna gång grönskande och jordiga, som om vi bevittnade ett tvärsnitt av växandets dramatik i en studie så närgången att varje detalj abstraherats. Eller är skalan tvärtom så storslagen att det är själva landskapet som bryter upp och faller samman? Exakt vad som utspelas saknar betydelse. Det väsentliga är måleriet som sådant, fylligt och lent omstörtande.

Jag hade gärna sett mer av Cervins arbete, men Molekyl Gallery har andra planer. Och kanske är det inte så dumt att sammanföra hennes bilder med Gitte Eidslotts. Båda är födda vid 1980-talets mitt, verksamma i Malmö och har hittat sitt eget sätt att låta färgen vibrera av rörelse. I Eidslotts fall ristas, skrivs och penslas rytmen in i duken med nervig intensitet. Mönstren som sprider sig över ytan påminner om fågelvingar i flykt eller bränningen som slår in med virvlar och skum i sitt spår. I bakgrunden svallar havet, djupblått, stormgrått eller milt turkost i solnedgångens aprikosa lyster.

Text: Carolina Söderholm

Malmö 2021-11-20

Om konst

GALLERI MOLEKYL

Niki Cervin och Gitte Eidslott, 12/11-5/12 2021

Kroppens rörelser och gestens betydelse för måleriet som arbetsprocess är uppenbara hos Molekyl gallerys två nu aktuella konstnärer. Det säger sig självt att båda trivs med det stora formatet. Niki Cervin väljer breda golvlackspenslar och sveper över duken. Spåren ger dynamiska men harmoniskt sammanhållna landskapsabstraktioner i gröna nyanser.

Lager på lager vibrerar även i Gitte Eidslotts dukar, mest i ljusgrått och blått. Med spik eller penselskaft skapar hon därpå en ordlös skrift, ett visuellt språk som löper över ytan som havets skummande vågor och krusningar.

Malmö 2021-11-18 © Kristina Maria Mezei

Här är konsten du inte ska missa

Är det en kraftmätning som pågår i Niki Cervins måleri? I vart fall har våldsamma energier släppts loss. Breda penselstråk drar upp abstrakta landskap av färg som häver sig, veckas och störtar samman. Texten till hennes utställning på Obra talar om scener efter katastrofen, där en titel som "Katrina" påminner om orkanens förödelse. Skönheten i de djupröda, rosa och smaragdgröna nyanserna är påträngande, som ville den på intet sätt nöja sig med det dämpat smakfulla. Istället väller den fram, otämjd för att inte säga brutal. Anslaget är på en gång frestande och olycksbådande. Dess slösande tumult får mig att tänka lika mycket på oron före som efter urladdningen. Det är ett förlösande måleri att se.

Carolina Söderholm (2020)

An exhibition in high speed

It was during the selection process for the jury-judged salon Ung Konst (Young Art) 2006 that I first saw the then 21 year old Niki Cervin's paintings. It was like gazing out over a hazy morning landscape through binoculars damaged by the damp. At her first solo exhibition at Estetica 2008, the exquisite vibrancy was complemented with restrained pencil drawings. Early on she displayed a mastery of the monumental and colour-saturated with the same ease as the extremely stripped down. This is still the most convincing debut I have seen, and it was therefore with some excitement that I went to Estetica to reacquaint myself with her art. Perhaps also with some trepidation; as it is not uncommon for an artist to receive recognition for a certain artistic expression early on, and get stuck in one track instead of venturing out on different paths. But so far, these concerns are unwarranted. If the early works embodied a frozen moment in a landscape, then that equilibrium is now disturbed, both in the drawings and in the paintings. Several of the works contain movement, started either by an explosive force, or by gravitation, which draws the components of the motif downwards. The drawings are still simple but, through the way that motion is created, an element of the aesthetics of comics has sneaked in. The exhibition's central point is an enormous painting which was also part of the exhibition "More Passion" at Dunkers Cultural Centre last year. Here, the movement is directed inwards. It is like going at ultra high speed on some sort of car track, in the middle of a race for life or death in a postapocalyptic dystopia. I get a sense of collapse. The structure, which could be a road in the picture, is broken up by immense forces further ahead. There is also an exciting cross between the power paintings and the landscapes, small drawings carried out with coloured pen where the forces have been given different colours. Vectors of magnetic fields, gravitation, velocity and acceleration fill the image and become jagged landscapes. Physics-meets psychedelia-meets the japanese artist Hokusai.

Tor Billgren - Sydsvenskan (2013)

Prophetical formations

Niki Cervin's works completely overwhelm the spectator. The meter wide canvases unfold like great saturated doomsday prophecies. Every single centimeter is used up. Sullen clouds of grey, black, orange and yellow-brown hover in front of us. Niki Cervin lets the colours pour over one another, blotting them out, but not smearing them on top of each other. From out of these clouds, unseen worlds step forward; newly made or lost landscapes. Without titles, these works become ours to fill with content. With her dystopian colours, Cervin paints a vision of the future that suggests emptiness and desolation. The dreamlike coloured landscapes speak of a different time. Small towns are silhouetted, a ghost town marked on the map. The colour drips down over the town, in between these intrusive, restless works, little pencil drawings poke out. They pop up like mushrooms in the forest. Small maps unfold. Or are they crumpling? They are maps over places, long since abandoned, where we neither can, nor wish to, go. These are drawings that illustrate lost places on earth, as well as in ourselves. Characterised by a richness of detail and delicate labyrinths, they contrast against the saturated sheets that are dripping with colour. But there is something fateful in all the pieces. The absence of reality and life is striking. Dreamily, the masses of colour float out, and take a new direction. These are traces of the thoughts and inner life of man, rather than something else. Niki Cervin's works breathe insight about something bigger and deeper. Without getting stuck, she develops her imagery. Clearly and distinctly, she continues to build on what she's started. In her majestic landscape we can probably all find ourselves. Or disappear.

Anna Sandberg - Om Konst (2009)