Darkness Exists

Christina Hamre (b. 1974) has created a grotesque universe peopled with peculiar creatures that seem to have stepped straight out of myths, fairytales, or perhaps the gloom of death; as if they come straight from having slumbered in deep valleys shrouded in shade, maybe in mountain caves riddled with vultures, cave bears, or a sinister gam – a troll in the guise of a giant raven or vulture such as the one who captured Germand Gladensvend in the ancient folk song. Whatever the case may be, the beings seem shattered of bone and marked by death, and no-one knew of them until the artist gave them bodily shape and invited them to enter the illuminated space of art. And yet: Perhaps we have in fact met them before, in a dream or in a momentary lapse of reason where our imagination has taken over, disrupting our lucid, rational everyday reality? What is certain is that the creatures speak to us because they tremble with immediacy, with presence. This quality is brought about by the quivering outlines that give them their characteristic black contours and body; the startling ingenuity evinced in the choice of materials that turns looking at them into a game, and the sensitive hand that modelled them out of base clay. Some figures lie supine, their spirits departed, carried on the backs of scary roaming predators, others arrive in coaches, and yet others hobble along on their bony stumps, leaning on sticks. This gallery of characters is partly indebted to a wide range of grotesque figures familiar from recent art history, e.g. in the works of James Ensor from Belgium, Niels Hansen Jacobsen from Denmark, and Max Ernst from Germany, and in the works of the Danish jester Herman Stilling. However, similar figures also appear in less recent art history; we know them from visual prophets such as the British William Blake and the Swiss-born artist Henry Fuseli, both of whom clothed the dark recesses of the human mind in supernatural forms.

However, Hamre also take a different, rather lighter approach to her grotesque cast of characters by wrapping them in a cocoon composed in equal measure of humour and tenderness; at the same time she subscribes to our common image bank, drawing on popular culture from Disney to Manga. See, for example, her drawing on animal skin entitled The Juggler, where everything is possible, like in a cartoon: A predator balances on its hind legs on the edge of a cliff, just about to give forth a terrific wolf howl, black cats ominously stalk the outskirts of the image while vastly moustachioed men and clowns look at us. All of these figures compose a living frame around the central figures: Two circus artists skilfully balancing on the back of a Strong Man. In this circus setting, the laws of gravity and the laws of central perspective have been sabotaged in favour of an a-hierarchical structuring of the image. By contrast, the drawing Hierarchical Structure offers a symbolic representation of power in which those in power lose ever more of their original identity as they climb towards the pinnacles of authority, and the supreme power hovers like en eerie, bodiless god above the aspiring climbers. One also notes how many of Hamre’s figures have visible skeletons – as if they were x-rays revealing how we are all the same because we all carry death within. Sometimes the ribs take centre stage, becoming separate forms in the clay sculptures and paper works.

One thing in particular jumps out at you when viewing Hamre’s new works for the group exhibition Blind Caravan: The stick poking out of and into bodies, obscene and humorous at the same time: This prosthesis-like extension of the body, this third leg has a long history familiar all the way back to Greek mythology, from the tale of Oedipus who was challenged to solve the Sphinx’ riddle, correctly replying that the creature who ended life on three legs was Man. Millennia before the rollator was invented, humanity could still find support on a stick. However, the stick is an ancient phallic symbol, too. It can also act as a tool to aid balance, such as when Charlie Chaplin dances. The stick can be a signifier of tradition, such as when René Magritte conjures up a shower of canes and bowlers, emblems of bourgeois respectability. It can be a symbol of fun and games, such as in the early Pop pictures by Per Arnoldi, where it floats cheerfully around the picture plane accompanied by bowler hats and circus balls. The potential associations are manifold. This is true of the entirety of Christina Hamre’s lush imagery. Regardless of whether she expresses herself on animal skins or paper, in textile or clay, in two or three dimensions, she nourishes the imagination and gives our gaze something to graze on.

Lisbeth Bonde
MA in Literature and Art History and writes about art for Weekendavisen