Peter Callesen - Unfolding

About

With a nod to Arte Povera, Callesen makes manifest seemingly impossible imaginings from a modest and ubiquitous material of our age - A4 copy paper. Alongside his larger site-specific installations, Callesen is perhaps best known for his signature A4 papercuts which weave references to a myriad narrative sources - from Greek mythology, Danish fairytales and biblical stories to childhood memory.

The austerity of subject matter and the starkness of the pure white paper is humbled with a somewhat quirky attitude towards life and death - an almost Beckettian sense of pessimism off-set with the absurdity of everyday life. The apparent fragility of Callesen's creations may be interpreted as a poetic gesture to the transience and impermanence of beauty. Paper is also used in his performances in which destruction and fragility are at the core of the work. Callesen's work doesn't shy away from failure, but rather awards it centre stage, thus highlighting a sense of contingency which stands for the human condition.