Installation view of Cecilie Bendixen’s work Cloud formations collection 2020 on display in NGV Triennial 2020 from 19 December 2020 – 18 April 2021 at NGV International, Melbourne © Cecilie Bendixen. Photo: Tom Ross
Galerie Maria Wettergren is delighted to announce the acquisition by the National Gallery of Victoria of Cloud Formations by the Cecilie Bendixen.
Cecilie Bendixen
Cloud Formations, 2020
Textile (PVDF), polyester thread (PFTE), LED
Commissioned by the National Gallery of Victoria for the Triennial
4 textile works, 350 x 175 x 210 cm; 300 x 150 x 180 cm; 250 x 125 x 150 cm; 200 x 100 x 120 cm
Cecilie Bendixen’s practice is grounded in the observation and expression of the intangible dynamics that are essential to our natural world, yet due to their ubiquity often they go unnoticed. Cloud Formations, a monumental textile installation, commissioned by the NGV for the Triennial, is both an investigation and an expression of the fluid and fleeting beauty found in the roiling confluence of heat, light, moisture, particles and airflow that come together momentarily to make a cloud. The material qualities of the textile – texture, stiffness, translucency – are deftly worked, folded and stitched to create forms that invite us to consider how we perceive transience and the space between the material and the immaterial so perfectly reflected in a cloud.
Installation view of Cecilie Bendixen’s work Cloud formations collection 2020 (foreground) and Jim Shaw’s work Capitol viscera appliances mural 2011 (background) on display in NGV Triennial 2020 from 19 December 2020 – 18 April 2021 at NGV International, Melbourne © Cecilie Bendixen © Jim Shaw / Courtesy of the artist and Simon Lee Gallery. Photo: Tom Ross
Installation view of Cecilie Bendixen’s work Cloud formations collection 2020 on display in NGV Triennial 2020 from 19 December 2020 – 18 April 2021 at NGV International, Melbourne © Cecilie Bendixen. Photo: Tom Ross
Bendixen’s painstaking process involved a team of makers hand forming each piece with needle and thread over several months. The material qualities of the textile – texture, stiffness, translucency – are deftly worked, folded and stitched to create forms that invite us to consider how we perceive transience and the space between the material and the immaterial so perfectly reflected in a cloud. As a result of Bendixen’s process and material selection, the type of transformations that come about with the passage of time are embedded in this collection. A stiff, flat textile becomes soft and voluminous, each stitch marks time and each fold contains space, light and shadow – always changing as the viewer moves about the work and forces of gravity gradually tug and pull at the form. CLOUDS draws our attention to the beauty and joy that can be found in these passing moments; encouraging us to look more closely and listen more intensely to the countless wonders occurring in the world all around us, all the time.
Photos: Ole Akhøj