call:
Exposing Time
By Bea Bromley

August 14 - september 16, 2020
The Demo Room at Galleri Image (Aarhus, Denmark)

When paint is pushed across the surface of an artist palette, it dries to form a recording of the artist’s handwork. Over time, layers of dried paint can accumulate into a solid mass. According to British artist Beatrice Bromley, paint palettes can be understood as a kind of artefact of the artistic process. By peeling back the layers of this mass, it is possible to retrace the artist’s steps.

The artworks featured in Exposing Time recreate this process. Day after day, Bromley added layers upon layers of paint to canvas and clay, slowly building up thick mounds of colour. She then stripped away the outermost layers with sandpaper, and in places cut into the paint with a knife to expose the artworks’ hidden depths.

For Bromley, “excavating layers of paint is akin to unearthing sedimentary layers in the Earth” - a metaphor that translates visually in the resulting artworks, which resemble planetary forms and geological heat maps. The deeper Bromley digs, the older the paint she unearths. Thus her excavations reveal the passage of time.

Exposing time in such a tangible way can be understood as a meditative act, in which Bromley actively remembers the time she has spent doing creative work. Digging into paint allows her to harness her attention on moments that hold particular value in her life - time spent creatively.

Response:
Dendrochronodrawing: Seeing Time
by stefan Bakmand

September 25 - November 15, 2020
The Demo ROom at Galleri Image (Aarhus, Denmark)

When a tree is cut down, it is possible to determine its age by counting the number of rings in its cross-section. Each ring represents one year. This is the essence of “dendrochronology” - the scientific method of dating tree rings.

For The Demo Room, Stefan Bakmand (DK) will draw patterns inspired by tree rings on the surface of the gallery window. A mirror on the gallery’s back wall will reflect these patterns. Between these two surfaces stands a framed drawing, made directly on a mirror, which Bakmand covered edge-to-edge with neon yellow circles, waves, and loops. Lit by red spotlights, the window will be transformed into a riot of line and colour.

Bakmand is interested in how these drawings - and the tree rings that inspire them - show the passage of time in a very concrete way. He describes the act of drawing these patterns as a circular process; an incessant activity that comes back to itself as the dots and lines grow denser and denser. But these works also reveal Bakmand’s interest in psychological phenomena, such as sober hallucinations and apophenia, where visual perception is transfixed or hijacked by pattern.