Dina Isæus-Berlin

Overview

Wetterling Gallery is pleased to announce Star Verse, Dina Isæus-Berlin’s third solo exhibition with the gallery.

In Star Verse, Isæus-Berlin presents a powerful suite of ten large scale oil paintings, all 180 x 180 cm. As the exhibition title implies, Star Verse displays a series of lyrical works, derived from the myths of the sky, both ancient and contemporary. The abstract paintings are each connected to the celestial bodies in our solar system and poetically plays with the notion of a planet as a metaphor, used to explain events beyond our control.

“In a time when humanity is in an existential crisis due to the misuse of our own planet, and we as species may see the very end ahead - space seems to me almost a comfort. Not only has it been a human projecting surface for thousands of years, but in the story of the universe, we have only existed for a second and it will carry on long after we are gone. I find that reassuring.”

Isæus-Berlin’s work are process-driven investigations, where her aim is to reinvent every painting within a set protocol. The starting point for the works in this suite has been the idea of a planet as a symbol. Her images bear marks of automatic gestures, a subconscious unfolding on the panels. Isæus-Berlin then highlight and challenge the large, calligraphic brushstrokes by juxtaposing them to layers of more detailed nature. Her compositions are defined by a kinesthetic energy, spatial ambiguities and a compelling tension between the different layers – they are at once organic and geometric.

As an extension of the exhibition, Star Verse is accompanied by a publication featuring an essay by Håkan Nilsson, art critic and Professor of Arts at Södertörns University.

Dina Isæus-Berlin, born 1991, lives and works in Stockholm. She holds an MFA from Konstfack University of Arts, Craft and Design in Stockholm. Isæus-Berlin has been exhibited at Fullersta Gård, Nicolai Wallner Gallery, Copenhagen, Färgfabriken, Liljevalchs, Konstnärshuset and at Gerichtshöfe, Berlin, with Enter Art Foundation. She has been awarded with grants from both Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts and Swedish Arts Grants Committee, among others.