Eighteen is pleased to present:
It’s More Like an Obsession
A solo exhibition by Lulu Kaalund
OPENING RECEPTION: FRIDAY MARCH 8. 2024. TIME: 16.00 - 21.00
EXHIBITION PERIOD: MARCH 9 – APRIL 27. 2024
It’s More Like an Obsession is a new body of work from Lulu Kaalund, consisting of twelve captivating and mind-boggling pieces ranging in size from 65 x 55 cm to 320 x 300 cm. Abstract tableaus, crafted with yarn, thread and pearls and mounted on wooden skeletons. The vivid and organic compositions actively engage the use of void, leaving space for the mind to wonder. Loopholes to other dimensions. Spaces to disappear or re-appear. The new works have an other-worldly quality to them, contemporary and ancient, as if they have always been with us in mind and now for the first time in physical form. An unspoken prehistoric language of abstraction. Portals to uncharted experiences.
With an extraordinarily well-developed sense for composition and colour work, Lulu Kaalund’s approach to crochet is rare. Working intuitively and only by hand, she often commences without a set strategy; the works emerge slowly and organically, spanning wall hung works, installations, wearable pieces and large-scale tapestries. Kaalunds’s works vibrate between sculpture and painting, intimate and finely meshed pieces as well as large and loosely composed works. Betokening stamina and patience on the verge of the manic, the largest pieces are undertakings that evolve over months of labour - material witnesses to the passage of time and to an artistic process that is at once meditative and strenuous. Gripped by an urge to create, Kaalund appears as a medium destined to deliver wild, seductive, and self-willed works to us from another plane of existence.
Bringing her projects on the go, Kaalund’s work extends beyond the studio setting; you may find her crocheting in restaurants, airports, bars, nightclubs and hotel lobbies. Like an abstract diary, the artist never plans her work in advance, they grow from a few stitches into sprawling pieces guided by little else but intuition and the will and desire to create. Stitches become rows and rows become material witnesses to places, people, moods, events, and to the passing time itself. The exhibition lends its title from a dialogue in the American high school tv series Freaks and Geeks (1999 – 2000).
Lulu Kaalund, born 1988, lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark and wherever the road may take her. Recent exhibitions and projects include Sea Untitled, Soho House X Creator Projects, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2023, I Made a Huge Tiny Mistake, ALMA, Stockholm, Sweden, 2023, My So-called Life, V1 Gallery II, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2023, With me! You shall live with me, Eighteen, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2021 and Serenity Now, Outpost Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2020
