Anton Lind

In Anton Linds recent painting Folds with one hour the shapes of the criss-crossing lines are reminiscent of folds in a fabric, as the title suggests. The folds of a tablecloth, for instance, are a popular motif for still-life paintings. Still, the green and yellow forms are above all abstract, like a cubist painting where objects are almost entirely dissolved into facets and fragments.

The other part of the title, ... one hour, is also present in the form of the representation of a digital timer where the artist seems to have recorded each movement of the timer in oil paint. The numbers counting seconds and minutes are overpainted to a blurry haze, whereas the tens of minutes are more legible and the one that is painted over a zero are distinct. Is this a fusion of our digital age and the century old tradition of still-life painting? Perhaps even more specifically: of the vanitas motif that was a sub-genre of still life, where cut flowers, fruits and foods in various stages of bloom and rot, were to remind the viewer of the futility of worldly pleasures in the face of time and eventually, death?

The painting reflects a method that Lind uses for all his paintings since a couple of years: he sets a timer for one minute, paints a passage from one of maybe twenty images that he uses as inspirational templates. When time is up, he resets the timer and starts on a passage of another template. This way, the paintings are the result of many super imposed layers of images. The method is a strict framework to give structure to the work - and a way to approach the endless possibilities of a blank canvas. It is related to the instructional works of some conceptual art of artists like Sol LeWitt. Painting with subtitles I is made after a similar concept. An abstract composition in shades of purple and black that is related to a futuristic painting by Umberto Boccioni.

At first sight Gateways is an abstract work of intense blue and almost fluorescent yellow and green forms interlocked like snakes in a swirling composition. After a while, some shapes seem to be drawn from nature - to the right are what looks like a couple of trees. Close to the centre of the painting are two forms that look like arches, or gateways. And there are, slightly wider and less defined other forms that could be read the same way. Are they the gateways to another reality? There is a dream-like quality to many of Linds’ paintings. The layers of images are like ghosts that sometimes emerge from some unknown depth, like last’s nights half- forgotten dreams.

Text by: Magnus af Petersens

Photos by: Jean-Baptiste Béranger