Echoes | Lene Kilde

LENE KILDE‘s faboulous world of childhood will be protagonist of ECHOES, the first solo show in Italy by the Norwegian artist held at PUNTO SULL’ARTE. The OPENING RECEPTION will be held on SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2023, at the main Gallery in Viale Sant’Antonio 59/61 Varese (Casbeno).

Lene Kilde exhibits a series of sculptures in concrete and wire mesh that depict children, captured in various interconnected situations. The artist seeks to describe the feelings of childhood, the little everyday gestures, the magic of play, the happiness and reflection, asking the viewer to “fill in” the apparent emptiness of the sculptures with their own experience.

Kilde’s children have no faces, but they “speak” through body language, through hands, feet and posture, that reveal gestures which are sometimes habitual, sometimes random. It is up to the onlooker to activate fragments of memory and adapt them to the spaces left free by the artist, traversed by the “wind” of memories.

ECHOES is the title that Lene has chosen for her first solo show at PUNTO SULL’ARTE, with the idea that the sculptures reflect the thoughts of the viewer and thus fill the void (only intentionally apparent) that “breathes” beyond the hands, the waist, the legs, the girls’ busts, subject of lengthy research. A breath that would seem an oxymoron compared to the “weight” of what is used to create: concrete and wire mesh, certainly not, in their substance, materials that give the idea of ​​lightness.

But the final step must be taken by the imagination, first and foremost that of the artist, and then by those who enjoy the work, perhaps digging up childhood memories, games and habits, even whims or passions, filling that “wind” that passes through the imagined body of the subject with real life.

Lene Kilde is a fine observer of body language, and in her sculptures fleeting moments materialise, little movements of the fingers, almost imperceptible gestures, postures that could perhaps seem banal, but on inspection of the work speak to us like – and more than – a finished portrait. It is not necessary to sculpt their emotions through the mimicry of a face, because eyes, nose, mouth are part of the imagined action, of that perfectly detailed limb that Lene describes thanks to her experience, to what childhood gave her or what she observed in the girls who played with her, but also thanks to the continuous observation of the other, to the construction of shared emotions.

The exhibition will be open until Saturday, December 23, 2023.