Sune Christiansen | Arter
Bricks Gallery is pleased to present Arter/Species, a solo exhibition by Sune Christiansen, with an opening reception on Friday, August 15, from 5-8 PM. In this exhibition, Christiansen presents new framed stoneware works, continuing his Arter/Species series. Alongside are freestanding stoneware sculptures and sound, forming a total installation.
The concept of collecting is central to Christiansen’s latest exhibition. Collecting - and mapping - as practices speak to the optimism in trying to understand the world and its diversity, the urge to explore endless wonders, and the quiet melancholy of gathering objects as a child. Beneath this lies a subtle recognition of how the world has shifted since then. Whether it’s natural phenomena like butterflies, imagined beings, or art itself, the exhibition reflects on what it means to assemble, preserve, and connect - to us, the things we gather, and our surroundings.
As in his paintings and sculptures, Christiansen continues his investigation of color, form, and surface - now translated into framed stoneware works. Each piece is mounted in a frame painted in a color specifically chosen for it, while the arrangement of the ceramic figures suggests visual systems: at once stringent and disrupted, harmonious and chaotic. A sense of intuition and humor, often present in his wider practice, is also reflected in the expressions of the individual figures, almost humanizing them through gestures and emotion.
Each figure stands as its own distinct entity, with unique colors, sizes, and expressions - yet they all belong to the same grouping, forming a shared presence despite their differences. The same applies to the freestanding sculptures, which resemble human-like creatures or indefinable objects: Varied in form, yet connected through material, rhythm and intent. Together, they form a quiet ecosystem, where individuality and collectivity coexist.
By referencing the museum - particularly natural history museums - through display choices and his own visual language, Christiansen’s works ask what it means to collect and map various phenomena, both natural and imaginary. In doing so, the exhibition becomes a reflection on categorization and a quiet resistance to it - embracing difference, and the blurred spaces between forms, meanings, and systems.
Text by Amanda Dam
Sune Christiansen (b. 1976) is a Danish artist, who lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark. Christiansen has developed a signature approach to figurative abstraction that is as ambiguous and suggestive as it is playful and inviting. Recent exhibitions include ‘Afterparty’ at Bricks Gallery (Copenhagen DK, 2024), ‘INTO THE LANDSCAPE’ at Pt.2 Gallery (Oakland US, 2022), and ‘New Paintings’ at Alzueta Gallery (Madrid ES, 2021).
