Fyra dimensioner av ett träsk / Swamp in four dimensions II

Fyra dimensioner av ett träsk / Swamp in four dimensions II is one of, in total, four related works on paper from 2021, with the others being: Fyra dimensioner av ett träsk / Swamp in four dimensions I, Fyra dimensioner av ett träsk / Swamp in four dimensions III and Fyra dimensioner av ett träsk / Swamp in four dimensions IV. The works, executed in watercolour, plant pigments, pen and pencil on paper measure 73.5 x 54.5 cm. each and all, seemingly, depict the same swamp in the background.

Given the geographical location of Christine Ödlund’s allotment garden, in the north-east of Stockholm, which she acquired in 2019, it seems likely that the depicted swamp is based on, or inspired by, the Owl’s Bay Swamp (famously depicted in monumental canvases by Ödlund like The Swamp [2021, acrylics, plant pigments and pencil on canvas, 204 x 345 cm, Firestorm Foundation] and Owl’s Bay Swamp [2022, acrylics, plant pigments, oil and pen on canvas, 202 x 372 cm]) nearby.

Fyra dimensioner av ett träsk / Swamp in four dimensions II demonstrates Ödlund’s ingenious way of using plant pigments, derived from the flora in her own allotment garden. This sophisticated technique allows the work to be interpreted as more than just a depiction of nature: it is nature every bit as much as the rendering of it. Sara Walker writes (in ‘The Very Real Reality of Plant Pigments. A pigment flora’, article in Systema Naturae, 2020):

Christine Ödlund works with plant-based pigments to create images of plants, images of chemical compounds from plants, or other, more abstract depictions of a most Ödlundian world. So, she literally attaches or captures the real plant onto paper. It is an entire universe brought into matter. Her ground-up plants, depicting themselves as themselves. […] Reading about early pigments that have been found in old vessels and pottery, and how researchers can now recreate the actual colour hues, is revelatory. We can see what they saw. A visual time-travelling device. The plant pigments used by Ödlund are also part of that long tradition in art history. Ödlund’s small allotment garden is the basis for her explorations: a highly concrete laboratory where she can familiarise herself with the various species that grow there. Her interest in the communication between plants has broadened, and now also includes communication between herself and the plants. The allotment is a limited space and can as such be compared to the confines of a painterly surface or paper. It is a gesamtkunstwerk. Early cave paintings were made using locally sourced minerals. In many cases, the binding material used was saliva or animal fat–which makes the cave paintings of oxen that were made with animal fat comparable to Ödlund’s paintings of plants made with plants. Hyperrealism and fantasy all at once. A merging of the most tangibly real with the freedom of being an artist, all the while looking back at the actual creation of the world through materials and plants and creating highly contemporary art. It’s mind-boggling.

Provenance

CFHILL, Stockholm, Skogspromenad, 8 October – 3 November 2021.

Firestorm Foundation (acquired from the above).

Exhibitions

CFHILL, Stockholm, Skogspromenad, 8 October – 3 November 2021.

Literature

(Eds.) Christine Ödlund & Louise Belfrage, Growing the Third Ear Under the Great Astral Mother Tree, 2022, no. 76, illustrated full page in colour.

Copyright Firestorm Foundation