From Site
Solo Exhibition at Elastic Gallery, Stockholm
23.02.19 -23.03.19
Review in Swedish at Konsten.net
Photos: Niklas Hansson
Shape Drifter and Irregular Painting ( wallpainting cut out )
Irregular Painting ( wallpainting cut out ) 2019 Acrylic paint and carpaint on aluminium 120 x180 cm
Irregular Painting ( radiator cut out ) 2019 and Irregular Painting ( wallpainting cut out ) 2019
Irregular Painting ( radiator cut out ) 2019 161x 81 cm
The Green Series nr. 17 and Irregular Painting ( radiator cut out )
The Green Series Acylic and oil on green perspex 42 x 29,7 cm
Anders Sletvold Moe's third exhibition From Site at Elastic Gallery is made specifically for the gallery space. The room and our perception are mirrored in handmade surfaces that meet industrially varnished layers and materials. Moe often works with references to his predecessors. He praises and reflects, with a slight dislocation, on how they came to their decisions. Something that is central to minimalism. The millimeters, that the artist sees, are perceived as a harmonious composition to us as viewers.
In the gallery's first room we are met by a wall painting where the surfaces and shapes are considered in advance but made in the present, in the days before the opening. A mix of painted surfaces and the reflective plexiglass makes up the minimalist practice that Moe is rooted in, a practices that requires accuracy. We find the strength of the works in a combination of the artist's interest in color and its properties based on shine, structure and composition. Moe's studio is a library of black paint cans and tubes in countless shades. This register and his knowledge are activated in the exhibition.
There are two other paintings in the gallery that clearly correspond to shapes present in the room: the stair railings, a field in the wall painting and a niche for a radiator. Moe refers back to colleagues and predecessors, such as Ellsworth Kelly with his shaped canvases, Eric Lennarth's repetitions and variations, and the recently-departed Robert Ryman, with his exact but almost nonchalantly-styled marks after tape on painted surfaces. Their legacy echos throughout From Site.
The Green Series, the exhibition’s last piece, refers to a study in the serial. Plexiglass in an A3 format, which has been treated with countless types and brands of green color, shows yet again Moe’s color palette references in all its shine, application and play with spatial light. The static brightness of the white cube creates a specific kind of imagery, but when the works are placed in moving mixed lighting, even more variations arise. The paintings are light, transparent and have a strong relationship to the room and its walls. They are like extraction from the the wall painting's layers where an interaction occurs between color, hand and tools. The light moves through the material, paints on the walls and grabs a hold of the room.
Ola Gustafsson
Stockholm, February 2019