Transience, oblivion and memories
Sund’s work thematizes the human mind’s processing of experiences and images, and invites the viewer to develop and spin on the motif in their own mind. Sund’s investigations of sensations and the impermanent can be seen in connection with his intuitive work process. He is not interested in the works being understood in a specific way, but on the other hand he seeks to evade definitions and categories in order to explore the spaces, the unclear and the ambiguous. Sund pushes the works through various processes, chases the expression between transformations, breaks down the images and uses the remains to build something new. Materials collide, dissolve, explore and transform. New wholes arise, and new meanings emerge.
Memory compositions
Sund is interested in the portrait, not as depictions of a specific person, but as part of a work of memory that works between dream and reality. Standing in front of such a portrait, one can almost hear the rustle of millions of particles – of sand or dust swirling around and revealing a look, a face or a being. As in a dream, the face takes the form of a memory composition, a collage of the faces of friends, family, people you have seen on the bus or in a film. Sund explores how our perception of reality is based on memories, both personal and collective, in order to develop methods where elements of the past are transformed and give new meaning to the present.
The fleeting nature of life
Distorted memories and amorphous faces can disturb or confuse us. The disjointed and incoherent challenges language and thus also our understanding of reality. This can be an unpleasant experience of uncertainty and perhaps an underlying darkness. In his graphic works, Sund works actively to organize light and dark, so that they can meet in as many ways as possible. He cuts, scratches the layers, opens up and condenses. At the very end, he bakes the layers together through the graphics. In the exploration of light and darkness, portraits and distorted memories, Sund explores the more vulnerable aspects of man as an individual and species, namely the awareness of the fleeting nature of life.
Torgrim Wahl Sund (b. 1976, NO) grew up in Fauske in Nordland. He lives in Bergen, and has a master’s degree from the Bergen Academy of the Arts. Sund has previously studied at Nordland art and film school. Has shown works at, among others, Kunstgarasjen in Bergen, Bodø Art Association, and KODE.
