In between sleep and sleep: Natalie Sutinen

Natalie Sutinen has moved on in her work with the immediate, magical object. In the exhibition In between sleep and sleep, works are shown from an ongoing study of time, where the artist discontinues a logical chronology on behalf of the irrational, and creates a room where time is movement.

Time becomes a wet slippery soap in the hand. Incomprehensible traces, memories and dreams are gathered in floating grey zones. In the images and artefacts there are remains of faded generations. Previous pleasures and gravities live on in a dark or light coloured hair, under closed eyes, in a wing or in a feather. Here we find reminders of destinies and persons who no longer are available to tell us the truth about the past. At the same time it is like you somehow know anyway.

A chronological experience of time does not exist in memory. Precisely like it rarely does in the dream or in hurried thought. An episode or memory from the past does not become weaker because it took place a long time ago. Time is relative and subjective and it feels like it is moving in some form. In between sleep and sleep it is an underwater story. Sutinen looks to details, makes parallels, creates patterns and pulls strings that she ties together to both the future, the present and the past. It is handsome and pretty, simply beautiful, funny and melancholic.

In between sleep and sleep is Natalie Sutinen’s third solo show at Galleri Niklas Belenius. This coming spring she will participate with a larger piece in the group show ‘Hem som turneras i Berlin och Skåne’. The Royal Academy of Art has elected Sutinen for an artist residence scholarship at Carl Larsson’s studio at Grez-sur-Loing where she will work on a site-specific project during May-June. Sutinen is also working on a film project that combines performance, documentary film and fiction.

Beatrice Ehrström