FIVE SOLOS IN DENMARK

2024

NB: EXHIBITION AT

GALLERI KULTURSTATIONEN HUMLEBÆK

EXTENDED

TO 15 DECEMBER 2024

“The impact is almost hypnotic, meditative and joy-inducing at the same time.“

scroll to read the full review by editor-in-chief Tom Jørgensen, KunstAvisen (The Art Newspaper) Nov/Dec 2024

EGE ARP-HANSEN

GALLERI KULTURSTATIONEN HUMLEBÆK

HUMLEBÆK CENTER 44

HUMLEBÆK

5 OCTOBER TO 15 DECEMBER (EXTENDED) 2024

OPEN SATURDAY AND SUNDAY

12 – 17

AND BY APPOINTMENT

OPENING RECEPTION 5 OCTOBER 13-16

About 40 works have been installed in different spaces at KulturStationen. It’s my biggest exhibition to date.

Some paintings are spanking new, created in my studio in Humlebaek this summer, others have been on a tour of Greater Copenhagen since New Years: Copenhagen City, Tåstrup, Vedbæk, Havneholmen and now two months in Humlebæk.

Works from different series and techniques have been installed in The Long Corridor, the permanent installation in The Conference Room, new works in the stair well and folded paintings in the Gallery space itself.

Ole Schwander, curator of Kunstvinduet (the Art Window), Copenhagen, wrote in connection with my two month solo there July/August 2024 among other things this about my Folded Works:

“In the works there is a balance between the predictable and the spontaneous, where planning meets artistic intuition. It is this duality that makes the works so attractive and invites the spectator to reflect on the many dimensions of reality and our way of experiencing the world. At a time when art is constantly challenging and reinventing itself, Ege’s works stand as a significant example of how traditional media can be transformed and given new life through innovative techniques. By forming folds in the canvas, he not only creates a visually impressive work, but also a deeper connection between art, light, shadow and shape – a tribute to both the simple and the complex in art.”

VERY FINE REVIEW

by editor-in-chief Tom Jørgensen, KunstAvisen (The Art Newspaper) Nov/Dec 2024

IN ALL THE COLOURS OF THE RAINBOW

Ege Arp-Hansen exhibits glowing paintings at KulturStationen in Humlebæk

“A couple of elderly gentlemen are engaged in a round of table tennis, three women of the same age group talk together, while they’re arranging flowers. The place is the multi-purpose venue KulturStationen (The Culture Station) in Humlebæk right next to the station, and you instantly feel that things happen here. Throughout the white painted premises from the room with the table tennis to the basement rooms downstairs the walls brightens up with paintings in all the colours of the rainbow. Wow, is the immediate feeling. This is precisely, what one needs on a Danish autumn day.

PAINTERLY ORIGAMI

The artist behind the vibrant works is Ege Arp-Hansen. When you’ve recovered from the agreeable chock, you quickly realise, that these are not normal paintings. The canvases are folded in a kind of painterly origami. Both literally and in a figurative meaning this gives a totally new dimension to the monochrome canvases. Refined light/shadow effects makes the surface alive and vibrant. Any change of the light in the rooms instantly changes the paintings, and the colours change character like the reflections in a forest lake. Contributing to this effect is Ege Arp-Hansens use of the palette knife in making structure on the canvases. As is his idea of letting the canvas shine through in selected areas. This way colour as well as the base material become ever-changing.

SOUTHEAST ASIAN INSPIRATION

Ege Arp-Hansen explains how he is very inspired by the minimalistic art, one finds in Southeast Asia, in China, Korea and Japan. A minimalism which originates in a spiritual approach towards creating art, where each brushstroke ideally should be an extension of the artists breath and an expression of harmony with the Cosmos. Equally Japanese and Chinese landscape art plays a big role.

An exhibition visitor once told him, how she came to think of the sea, when she saw his folded paintings. If you get this impulse, it’s difficult not to see the meandering folds as waves on the sea or a lake. The impact is almost hypnotic, meditative and joy-inducing at the same time.

The just about 40 works created over 10 years each shine with their particular colour from the deepest violet over radiating sun yellow to a sparkling emerald green with a small intermezzo of leaf gold.

It is quite simply a wonderful exhibition.“

SOUND OF SILENCE

GALLERI NYBRO

SANKT PEDERS STRÆDE 21

COPENHAGEN

26 JANUARY TO 4 FEBRUARY 2024

OPEN EVERY DAY

12 – 18

AND BY APPOINTMENT

OPENING RECEPTION 25 JANUARY 16-20

“It’s a great pleasure to present Ege Arp-Hansen’s first solo exhibition in our beautiful, new premises in Sankt Peders Stræde 21, in the very heart of the old town in Copenhagen. It’s his fourth solo with the gallery.

“sound of silence” focuses on Ege Arp-Hansens unique folded paintings, “ripples”, a group of work he’s been developing and working with over the past 10 years. 30 works will be shown, primarily brand new from two series created within the past year.

He’s deeply fascinated by all the colours of the rainbow and also uses them here, but the individual works are often monochromatic, regularly with the application of only one pigment.

The canvas, its structure and other physical qualities are always an integrated part of his paintings expression. Most clearly in these folded works, where the canvas is explored as a manipulatable material, cloth, matter, which is folded and worked rhythmically into something which reminds many people of the surface of water.

The stretchers profile, form and spatial presence under the canvas is an essential part of the work, not just a hidden necessity. They’re sourced and constructed with great care, before the finished pieces of canvas are mounted around them.

The works hereby moves into a three dimensional space, somewhere between painting and sculpture.

Their expression change radically according to the light, its intensity, quality and the angle from which you look. When you move, you experience how colour, patterns, and glistening reflections arise, change, disappear and new constellations emerge. There is no golden cut. The centre is everywhere. The works seem to exist in constant transformation, but still remain as they were created. They’re all untitled, and thereby don’t lead- or mislead the spectator in relation to an interpretation. In Ege Arp-Hansen’s art choices and possibilities are offered, not one dimensional answers.

Ege Arp-Hansen is fascinated by the small in the large and the immense in the minute, by subtle nuances, modulations and rhythms evenly distributed over the whole surface of the canvas, moving from the totally soft, whispering, over the sizzling, to the very sensual. He’s working to attain an inherent, meditative peace and balance, also in the most intense and colour-packed works.

This peace and balance is at the very heart of his working process. It’s here he finds his inspiration. Going about his daily work in the studio between the forest and the sea. To the sound of silence…”

GALLERI KINGO

KINGOSVEJ 1A

TAASTRUP

4 APRIL TO 30 APRIL 2024

OPEN

TUESDAY TO FRIDAY 13-16

SUNDAYS 7 and 28 APRIL 13-16

OPENING RECEPTION

4 APRIL 18-20

& JUULAGER

VEDBÆK STATIONSVEJ 18

VEDBÆK

6 JUNE TO MID SEPTEMBER 2024

OPEN

TUESDAY TO THURSDAY 9-17.30

FRIDAY 9-18

SATURDAY 8-13

SUNDAY AND MONDAY CLOSED

KUNSTVINDUET

HAVNEHOLMEN 80

COPENHAGEN V

30 JUNE TO 28 AUGUST 2024

OPEN

24/7

OPENING RECEPTION

30 JUNE 15-17

Ole Schwander, curator of Kunstvinduet (the Art Window), writes:

THE ARTIST WHO FOLDS THE CANVAS TO LIFE

With an innovative approach that blends traditional painting techniques with sculptural measures, Ege Arp-Hansen manages to create works that play with light and shadow. He starts the work like any other painter with a blank canvas. But what sets him apart from others is the transformative process that follows the painting process. He selects few pigments for each canvas, often only one that, in dilutions of varying degrees, is applied in many transparent layers.

When the painting is complete, he embarks on a careful folding of the canvas, which is done to highlight certain elements of the painted image and create a depth, which it otherwise would be impossible to achieve on a flat and even surface. This technique creates a relief effect where parts of the painting emerge while others step back. Light and shadow play on the folded surfaces, giving the work a dynamic and vibrant character.

In the works there is a balance between the predictable and the spontaneous, where planning meets artistic intuition. It is this duality that makes the works so attractive and invites the spectator to reflect on the many dimensions of reality and our way of experiencing the world. At a time when art is constantly challenging and reinventing itself, Ege’s works stand as a significant example of how traditional media can be transformed and given new life through innovative techniques. By forming folds in the canvas, he not only creates a visually impressive work, but also a deeper connection between art, light, shadow and shape – a tribute to both the simple and the complex in art.

SOLO IN DENMARK

2023