Matilde Duus’ preferred medium is glass, which she often combines with materials such as metal, natural stone and paper in sculptural and spatial objects, as well as in wall-hung works that balance between two and three dimensions. With the transparent quality of glass as both material and motif, she investigates phenomenological aspects of our visual process: how light, shadows, and reflections on its surface change the appearance of works, while coloured pigments, shaping or the addition of other materials change their properties.
Duus is concerned with the interaction between the objective perception of the physical eye and the more diffuse impression of the subjective gaze. The glass can function both as a lens for the eye, as we know it from glasses and contact lenses, but also as an image of how light is refracted in the cornea and forms motifs on the retina. They are motifs by which we navigate, images that keep us in close contact with our surroundings, but also motifs that can be coloured by moods, poetic and personal. As you know, the eye is the mirror of the soul.
In Duus’ recent works we find an interest in the fluid and fleeting; for the transparent glass, which in liquid form can flow into small lakes or solidify into drop shapes, like tears on a cheek. She is interested in the formal similarities between the glass and the water which most of our globe and our body consists of; rivers and oceans, blood and tears. The water that separates Norway, where Duus lives and works, from Denmark, where she comes from; the amniotic fluid, the child is surrounded by, or the cry that suddenly breaks out and calls for comfort.
Solace
Solace is a space you step into.
"If you see me, cry" is carved into a stone that emerged somewhere in Germany during the drought last summer. As a silent monument to the dried-up rivers of earlier times with hunger as a result.
I mirror myself in the child's ignorance, its tears and its laughter.
You see something different than I do. I see something different than you do. We see the same. Humans are the only animal which cry emotional tears and find solace therein.
I cry my salty tears into the ocean and watch it rise. The ocean is both the distance and the connection to everything I hold dear. Other species have gone extinct before us and I live with loss and sorrow and rejoice every day.
Back in the cold, clear, Norwegian winter weather. The colours span from light blue tones to delicate rose, they are almost transparent and open my body and mind.
I am struck by a homely peace that surprises me. My loss is bipartite. My loss is absolute.
Solace is a search for rest. And someday we shall swim among seaweed for eternity.
Matilde Duus, 2023
Matilde Duus (b. 1983, DK) graduated from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen in 2014 and from Valand Academy, University of Gothenburg in 2012. Duus has recently made solo exhibitions at M100 (Odense, 2021), Bricks Gallery (Cph, 2020), and Magasin Lotus (Cph, 2018), as well as taken part in group shows at Eksrummet (Cph, 2022), S12 Gallery (Bergen, 2022), Galerie MøllerWitt (Cph, 2021), and Marie Kirkegaard Gallery (Cph, 2021). Her works are represented in the public collections of the Danish Arts Foundation and Copenhagen Municipality. Public and site specific works include Banedanmark (Ringsted, 2020), UC Syd (Kolding, 2022), and Sydhavnskvarteret (Aarhus, forthcoming).