PRESS RELEASE
Glenn Sorensen
October 17 – December 23, 2020
Opening Saturday, October 17, 1-7 PM
Annet Gelink Gallery is pleased to present Glenn Sorensen’s eight solo exhibition at the gallery. Though figurative painting has been the base of his practice in preceding bodies of work, Sorensen has in recent years increasingly let go of recognizable references in his work. This latest presentation of striking black and green works characterizes Sorensen’s progression into ever greater abstraction.
Essentialism has been the driving force behind Sorensen’s work. In previous work this led him to portray his every day, domestic surroundings, focusing on flowers and plants and his family. The resulting works are instilled with a
dreamlike, removed atmosphere, in which the underlying private tensions and emotions remain concealed within the image.
In this recent body of works Sorensen pushes himself further, creating paintings in which the source of the image is masked to unrecognizability. Rather, with the painted canvases laid on wooden panels, the works evoke religious icons. In the use of materials and abstraction, Sorensen explores the essential in the image to a heightened degree. The various bold and less defined lines and spots of colour depicted, communicate an array of movements, emotions and tensions both unknowable and open to interpretation.
By restricting his colour palette more than he has previously done, opting for only green and black, the paintings work together to create an air of immediate and arresting urgency. On closer inspection the paintings slowly reveal more, the rich variety in shades of green giving the works a lushly tactile dimension. The dreamlike and introverted qualities of Sorensen’s work further leave the viewer off balance. Sorensen both conceals and reveals, enticing the viewer to surprising, private responses.
Glenn Sorensen is currently an associate proffesor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and studied at the Helsinki Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki and the City Art Institute, Sydney. His exhibitions include Corvi-Mora, London (2019), Annet Gelink Gallery (2015), Kristianstads Konsthall (with Eva Larsson), Kristianstad, Sweden (2012), Galleria Raucci/Santamaria, Naples (2011). Sorensen’s paintings are included in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, the Nordic Watercolour Museum, Skärhamn, Sweden and the Malmö Art Museum, Malmo, Sweden.