SUBSTANCE

In August I participate for the third time on Bredgade Kunsthandels glass exhibition SUBSTANCE, this time curated by Atila. I participate with Mary Koshenkova, Maria Bang Pedersen, Marie Retpen and Karin Dark. I have made a series of bowls in my technique 3d by hand, they are vanishing points, holes, entrances surrounded by a bowl. I have called them Round’n’round. 16th of october the exhibition moves to Thisted in Det ny Kastet in the north of Denmark, and it runs to 8th of november.

The group of raw jars and bowls is bound together by the horizontal lines in the layers, which are the imprint of the manual 3D-print technique, and which I have developed and fine-tuned during the last few years. Various kinds of silicates have been added to the powdered glass and the objects appear as though produced of a material which is not immediately identifiable. Not as an objective but  as  a  result  with  an  innate,  interesting  unsettledness.    I  work  with  layers,  elements,  and materials  in  close  connection,  build  up  and  elaborate  and  raise  two-dimensional  sheets  to  three In this group of objects, the circle and the sphere hold the materials together.

 

Pavla Rossini skrev i katalogteksten til Substans:

“Karen Lise Krabbe didn’t enter into the world of glass until the end of the 90’ies when she began intensive experiments with glass. She established her first studio only 11 years ago. So it caused a bit of surprise when last year she received the main award in one of Europe’s most prestigious competitions,  the Coburger  Glass  Prize  for  Contemporary  Glass,  since  she  was  still  a  relatively unknown Danish artist to the international circles. There she showed masterpieces from the series Blind Boxes for NoThing,  which are the results of years of experiments with  her own sand-cast and Pâte de verre technique. Mastering a not quite controllable process of construction contributed to developing the objects’ complex shape as well as their size. Only on closer scrutiny they turn out to be boxes, where lids and bottoms are imperceptibly and invisibly joined. They are utterly fascinating – they look like tiny formations emerged out of nature. They resemble layers of sand shaped by ebb and flow. Despite their fragility and small dimensions, they in no way look small. One can even imagine the m blown up to monumental proportions, as huge rocks formed by erosion.

The jars and bowls now on show are from the same family – at first glance they do not coincide with traditional notions of glass as transparency, translucency and smoothness. In shape, perhaps, they still hold links to objects of utility. However any  idea of practical usage is quite illusory. They are executed  in  a colour scale of various shades  of sand  – from light, fine-grained to darker, more coarse-grained substances, reminiscent of wet sand. Semi-abstract suggestions of plant shapes, shells, scales, carapaces, fish fossils or coral reefs are elements in her large multi-piece installations like Turmoil of Materials or Matterscapes, assembled like curiosities in large, clear glass aquariums. Also they are results of what she calls a “search for the  third  material”,  a  search  for  a  new  composite  material,  that  may  involve  testing  of  new combinations of various silicates, clay types, and sand with wire, baking powder, flour, gum arabic and much else, whatever she can find in her alchemist kitchen that causes unknown colour, surface and shape effects.”