As testimonies to – or perhaps memories of – people, places, things, feelings, and touches, Jóhan Martin Christiansen presents a series of plaster reliefs in his first solo exhibition in Alice Folker Gallery. Being quite literal imprints – casts of found cardboard boxes – the reliefs seem to signify something that once was, but no longer is. As afterimages or traces of the past, they carry the outlines of a footprint, a pattern, a logo, or a colour faded in the process of transference from the original cardboard box to the plaster cast.

 

Yet, Christiansen’s works are not simply mimicking minimalist investigations of temporality, form and colour. Although at times, they may seem related to artists such as Robert Ryman, whose works attain an almost profoundly physical degree by adhering to a white palette. Christiansen’s casts are something more. They are intimate portrayals of a family member, who left a dent, a mark or a footprint on a piece of cardboard. They are testimonies to queer culture, where the outline of a shoe that was once spray painted remains on a piece of cardboard. They are afterimages of lives and lived experiences.

 

The first stages of a project. This will become a portrait 

of my father. A plaster cast in green. His eyes are green

-ish. The cardboard contains traces of my father’s 

maintenance activities, painting one thing or another. 

The footprints are his. A life lived in taking care and 

helping others. My father has been an inspiration to 

me, his wordless help. When I was 13 years old, he 

found me a studio, and has in many ways - directly 

or indirectly - been involved in creating a framework, 

a space, for me. I don’t know if or how I can give 

anything back, but this is my portrait of him. My way 

of saying thank you.

 

This is the text accompanying a photo Christiansen posted online a while ago. In the photo, a piece of brown cardboard is hanging on a white wall. In the middle and along the left side of the cardboard are traces of white paint. It looks almost as if someone stopped halfway through painting the walls white, and instead decided to hang up the cardboard that was used to cover the floor. In fact, this may not be so far from the truth. 

The picture is taken just before the folds in the cardboard box, the white splashes of paint, the dents and the dirt are transferred to and transformed into a plaster relief. A process, where the plaster is allowed to work for itself, absorbing pigments, patterns and prints from the original cardboard. This is a photo of a piece of cardboard that was later cast in plaster and came to be GRACE (a portrait of my father). The artwork, which in addition to its reference to a Kae Tempest song, also gives name to the exhibition. It may, above everything else, be a tangible yet intimate portrait of life, both the hard and the soft.

​

​

Jóhan Martin Christiansen (b. 1987, the Faroe Islands) is a visual artist educated with an MFA from Malmö Art Academy and has since completed the interdisciplinary course Of Public Interest at the Royal Institute of Fine Arts in Stockholm. In 2023 Christiansen founded the artist-run project space Bonne Espérance.

 

His works span across various media such as installation, plaster reliefs, printmaking and video and often explore questions related to materiality: How do we handle a material and how are materials handled within a specific context – physically, emotionally, and philosophically? In the materiality, forms and titles of the pieces, small deltas of meanings and connotations often appear referring to natural and constructed environments, urban spaces and situations, language and translation, queer body experiences as well as the baroque and pop music.

 

Christiansen’s works are represented at both private and public collections, including Danish Art Foundation, National Gallery of the Faroe Islands, and Nuuk Art Museum. In 2021, he received the talent award from Carl Nielsen and Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen and in 2024, he received the three year grant from The Faroese Culture Foundation.