Jone Kvie: Everything Falling Into Place

The scale and material of the sculptures give a lightness and a feeling of fragility that contrast with the monumental objects they depict. By presenting the nebulae like sculptural objects one of the greatest forces in the universe suddenly seems manageable and tangible. This inherent duality in Jone Kvie’s sculptures points to man’s need to rationally understand the universe, but also to the impossibility of this. Our reason, which says that all objects have an end, collides with our fantasy about the infinity of the universe. The sublime is put on the agenda, and nature is acknowledged as the stronger.

While the sculptures in Sculpted Gas send us many light years out into space, we are drawn back to Earth with the work Untitled, where four tree roots, shaped in German silver, stand fused and frozen on the gallery floor. With the roots planted deep in the earth, they seem to ground us in our own concrete reality, but the hollowed-out stumps with an inside lining of black pigment let us fall back into the nothingness of the black holes of the universe.

Jone Kvie (b. 1971) has in recent years shown his works in venues such as Sörlandets Kunstmuseum, Norway; Krannert Art Museum, Illinois; The Beijing Biennial; Kunsti Museum of Modern Art, Finland; The Wanås Foundation, Sweden; Charro Negro Galeria, Mexico; I – 20 Galleries, New York. Until May 1st Jone Kvie will present his solo show H II Region at Elastic in Malmø, Sweden.