Morten Skrøder Lund

Ltd Los Angeles is pleased to present Mustang, Morten Skrøder Lund’s debut solo exhibition in the United States.

Paul Cézanne has legendarily said in regards to his landscape paintings that “Man is absent from, but entirely within the landscape,” a paradox that later inspired Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari to shape their reflections on the act of creation and the immanent qualities of the artwork. For these two thinkers the landscape depicted by the artist, if so external or internal, migrates and becomes, not the scenery such as the artist experiences it, but something separate. In the end the work of art is no longer a clear representation of an artistic vision but inheres its own essence and autonomy – you could say that the landscape is looking back at the beholder. This is not the product of a strategic process drawn from one point to another but rather a redrafting both of the image and the artist in a joint becoming. Morten Skrøder Lund is highly aware of his limited possibility to totally dominate the outcome of his work and therefore actively switches between involvement and dissociation in relation to his paintings. His practice hovers between directed actions and chance, starting by setting out a direction for each canvas, while allowing for factors such as chemistry and gravity to change the motif throughout the work. It is a conversation swinging back and forth between the artist and random dynamics that stops only when all layers of paint have fully dried. It is a restricted approach that hosts many additive elements as the image separates itself from its maker.

Skrøder Lund’s paintings often bear traces of actions and material segmentation with corporal qualities such as paint that is peeling off, varnish that accumulates in puddles, jarring brushstrokes and materials that morph under different chemical reactions. His use of these components is eclectic and includes extensive mixtures of supplies such as ink, lacquer, plastic, styrofoam, acrylic paint, pencil, oil paint, nails, gesso, watercolors, vinyl paint and silicon, among others. His paintings spring from both a genuine interest in aesthetic sensibilities as well as a conscious resistance towards defined taste standards. At first glance, the works seem to present a type of immanent timeline of their own creation staged in their rich layering, yet as layers integrate and merge, this timeline becomes harder to detect. Each composition contains its own unique compound of shapes and rhythms that make some of them vibrate in a spectrum of frequencies.

In others, the void created between the segmented elements contributes to, or collapses, the perception of depth as they overlap, frame, and dissolve each other. In some images body parts develop only to dissolve again. Yet in contrast to the painting’s visceral nature Skrøder Lund’s approach to his practice and the audience is reserved.

The artist is not particularly interested in narration, neither in relation to the motifs he presents nor in highlighting the process of production of his paintings. Rather than offering a set of reflections relating to its own formation, Skrøder Lund is more interested in puncturing any conclusive rendering of his work. In this line of thought each painting depicts its own logic in a manner of diversity rather than coherency, though always with the artist’s imprint unquestionably present. We are left with canvases staring back at us.