Klara Lilja: Alive - Art Matter - Guide - Journal

“Life as a human being is multifaceted. It is fantastic but can also be a violent and brutal experience. The works in this exhibition surround themselves around the question of how much the human soul can survive.” Klara Lilja, 2024

Klara Lilja's artistic universe combines references to ancient scientific practices, art history, anatomy and her love for the genre of fantasy in her ceramic sculptures. In Alive Lilja draws on the topic of the emotional pain associated with grief and loss. Having recently gone through a tough emotional experience herself, Lilja found herself creating works that were the physical manifestations of the emotional processes of breakdown and healing. The title of the exhibition refers to the underlying human will to stay alive through hardships and coming out on the other side, not necessarily stronger but perhaps wiser and nonetheless alive.

The ancient tradition of alchemy has been a key source inspiration for Klara Lilja throughout the development of her practice. She views the process of creating her ceramic artworks to be very similar. In the alchemical process, you start out with a base material, which you calcine, distill and burn repeatedly until you end up with the Philosopher's Stone and the precious metal of gold.

In the same manner, Klara Lilja turns the basic material of clay to art by molding and burning it several times. The works in this exhibition take a point of departure in this alchemical process of transformation, including the three stages of nigredo (black), albedo (white), rubedo (red), burning and distilling the material until it finally turns to gold. These three colours as well as the colour pink form the colour palette of the exhibition. As the order of the colours of the alchemical process vary from source to source, Lilja has formed her own order, starting with the untreated white step to the pink step, hereby infusing her personal journey as part of these steps. Next is the brutal and violent red step and then finally the burnt and charred black step, which is almost always the last step before reaching the level of gold.

Central for the exhibition are the four vessels and four “gravestones”, placed in pairing colours opposing each other, creating a physical sense of the steps of transformation. They are surrounded by broken, bleeding, blooming and speared hearts, magical staffs, spine swords as well as broken and healing arms and hands. Some of these motifs stand out as a confrontation against the pain. The hands have a special meaning to Lilja, as they are her own most important tools and, in her eyes, the most fascinating part of the human body. In this exhibition, they are a symbol of initiating, taking control and completing. The handheld weapons in form of swords and staffs are drawn from the realm of fantasy and are objects of protection or defence to shield your person from outside attacks. Seeking to cover the many emotional aspects of the human experience from internal and external battles and healing, Lilja’s works are human journeys made physical.

Fakta

Klara Lilja, born in 1989 in Denmark, lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark. Lilja holds a MFA from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Visual Arts in Copenhagen from 2021. Her Instagram is a popular visual gallery where she engages with her 21K+ followers with humour and endless digressions about almost everything, while keeping her face anonymous. Resurrection, the artist’s MFA degree installation, was permanently acquired by Horsens Art Museum, DK. Recent major exhibitions include: Underfundige Underverdener (Enigmatic Underworlds), with Jean René Gauguin (1916-1976), Ordrupgaard, Charlottenlund, DK (2023), Between Myth and Reality with Jean René Gauguin (1916-1976) and J.F. Willumsen (1863-1958), CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art, Middelfart, DK (2022) and Willumsen's Museum, Frederikssund, DK (2022-2023); Parangkera, V1 Galley, Copenhagen, DK (2021); Cosmogony, Holly Golightly, Copenhagen, Denmark (2021); Fantasy, Group show curated by Klara Lilja, Collaborations, Copenhagen, DK (2020); Philosopher’s Mountain, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, DK (2019), and Dryade, Politikens Forhal, Copenhagen, DK (2018).Alive is Lilja’s fourth solo exhibition with the V1 Gallery and Eighteen.

Kilde:
Eighteen