behind

Elf Tumi
Private exhibition in Kubbnum
Opening October 9th 17:00 PM – 19:00 PM
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The materials that speak to me; steel, velvet, plywood, bricks, flowers, clay and sponge are materials that yield, endure, remember and have texture. Materials that create charge in the space. I am always looking for the place where fragile and strong can live side by side – where humor and heaviness meet, play and seriousness and darkness and light have a conversation.

The works are often on the verge of being defensive walls and fragile physical memory. A steel wall on wheels gradually shifts the boundaries. A plywood cladding that holds a fragility under a hard surface. A small layer between bricks plays a calm tone. Fragile clay sculptures rest on steel. The works want to emerge, allow themselves to be seen, but still hide behind the material.

Materials have their own memory and working with them is a conversation with a body that understands more than words. I build, break down, try again, listen, confess. The working methods and process often tell me something that I had not been aware of or examined sufficiently before. I am constantly between layers, between craft and thought and between hiding or showing. I want to know what is behind, where people are coming from and what makes them who they are today. I believe that art is a place where material and emotion become one, heavy is soft and fragile is strong.
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