VANITY WEEDS

Vanity Weeds

Gallery Lene Bilgrav

2021

Press release

It is a great pleasure to present Anne Marie Ploug’s first solo exhibition in Gallery Lene Bilgrav. The exhibition is entitled Vanity Weeds, and at the exhibition Anne Marie Ploug shows a number of completely new works. There is an opening Saturday, May 29 at 12 – 4pm. The artist will be present, and everyone is welcome.

At the exhibition weeds are the thematic starting point. In a number of graphic works such as woodcuts and copper prints as well as works in plaster, Anne Marie Ploug examines the shape of the plants as a starting point for exploring the surfaces, space and color of the work. But even though there is a figurative element in the works, the content is just as much the graphic process. The tones and density of the copper prints in the incised lines are different from the more open and rough expressions of the woodcuts. In the woodcuts, Anne Marie Ploug has worked with layers upon layers of primary colors, which she finally demarcates with black. In the copper prints, the subject is zoomed in, so that lines and colors become a motif element in line with the plant. The exploratory and experimental element of the process is also the reason why all works are different and unique.

Anne Marie Ploug has previously used weeds as a motif, but this time she is especially inspired by the plants and colors that appear in Baroque paintings and especially in the Italian painter Caravaggio. Among other things, he painted realistic representations of plants and fruits that, in a halfrotten state, should remind the viewer of the perishability of everything. Anne Marie Ploug’s works are not memento mori, but instead show a fascination with the ugly and what is often considered superfluous or secondary and simple. It is characteristic of Anne Marie Ploug that she is often based on a figurative element, and that the work with form and color is the primary thing. With Anne Marie Ploug, the motif is processed and simplified so that its connection to the real world disappears. But the figurative is the starting point from which the horizon expands, and new narratives emerge.

Anne Marie Ploug (1966) has for many years been a significant artist on the Danish art scene. She graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 1988 – 1995. She has exhibited at a large number of exhibitions both in Denmark and internationally. Among other things, she has exhibited several times at Horsens Art Museum, where she will have her second solo exhibition in the spring of 2022. She is represented in Horsens Art Museum’s collection of significant works, just as her works can also be found at, among others, the New Carlsberg Foundation, the Statens Kunstfond, Skovgaard Museum, Kaliningrad Museum and Carlsberg Museum. In 2019, she was awarded the Anne Marie Telmanyi born Carl-Nielsen honorary scholarship. She has been behind several decorations, most recently the decoration Mikro Makro at Aarhus University. She lives and works in Copenhagen.