In her work from 2019 Tove Storch continues investigating a sculptural form through the media ceramics. The new sculptures were made at Tommerup Ceramic Workshop, during her stay at the workshop preparing for her comprehensive commission for Jyllands Postens new headquarter in Aarhus Harbor in the Northern part of Denmark. Yet different in size, they seem to resemblance a similar visual language, where metal and ceramics interact. The ceramic material marks a new direction in Storch’s body of work, which arise from her investigations of the material. The meeting between metal and ceramics shows how contradictions of materials and structures can create a new spatial experience.
In her works, Tove Storch is interested in how clay changes from a soft material to a hard form, from wet to dry, and how movement can be shown in a static object. Movement is an essential part of these sculptures because it is how the working process reveals itself to the viewer, which marks an absolute center point in Storch sculptures; The sculptures stand there as if they were a frozen image of a movement, caught in the very moment when the ceramic and glaze feel into place.

In her new ceramic objects, Storch then continues her investigations of how the character of a material changes accordingly to the counter material and how the combination of a soft and hard material affects our experience of a sculptural form.


TOVE STORCH
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Born 1981, lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark

The first elements the eye registers in its encounter with Tove Storch's sculptures are the repetition of basic geometric structures and the use of standardized or factory-produced materials. By letting the eye rest on the formal features, the sculptures appear neutral and self-contained in their final shape. And indeed they are orderly and well-behaved. But when disanchoring the gaze from the spell of simplicity, it occurs that the sculptures vibrate. They are charged with the artist's awareness that things are in constant development, and if they sit or stand straight and proper is just as in the wait of an imminent release, like the pupil the second before the bell rings.

The objects we are presented with are the tangible translation of a state of potentiality, where the intelligibility of materials and forms is employed to wedge and balance the inherent force of physical matter. In this process, which is open-ended and vividly metamorphic, the artist is both witness and accomplice. If, on the one side, she lends her hand to the establishment of the infrastructure, on the other she steps back and lets the forces at play take their course, observing their manifestation with the same wonder of the viewer.
Curiosity is the hidden drive that animates Storch's installations, and the red thread that connects all of them.


To some extent, the artist’s inquisitiveness might explain the audacity of certain material combinations, as well as the intuitive and at times emotive nature of her outputs. But, most importantly, it is what makes the beholder feel at ease in the presence of her creations. Carrying no imposition of value, they are unbiased in the way they come to light, and devoid of the pressure to perform in how they occupy the space. Their meaning is embedded in their being. No matter if the gesture applied by the artist operates by subtraction or addition: it always reveals a fragment of purpose that existed beforehand, offering a circumstance of non-verbal understanding.

Text by Paola Paleari