Charlotte Hallberg. Touch Every Flower

About

Hallberg’s vibrant, kaleidoscopic abstractions indulge in the subtle vivifications of slow looking, often directed at objects within nature. Converging in on details, forms begin to deconstruct into formal elements of contour, gradient, and texture within her works. Rosy, fuchsia tones signal dahlias growing in her garden, while black and yellow ombre fields invoke the rounded bodies of bees frequenting them. Altogether, these protracted examinations culminate in pithy, pictorial moments that are rendered and assembled across her surfaces with parallel attunement and care.

Debuting a new body of work, dual arched panels usher a novel shape within Hallberg’s practice, a departure from her previous tondos, which merged circular form with concentric action akin to the focusing of a microscopic or telescopic lens. Here, optical experience is still at the forefront, yet the tools for observation have shifted to a more analog frame - the binocular vision of two hands cupping one’s field of vision. Left and right exist separately as double takes or are stitched together into an unexpected, unified whole. Amplifying to anthropomorphic proportions, Hallberg’s works assert a corporality that not only prescribes a gestural mark making that enlists the entire body, but also extends that gesture by inviting an immersive, nearly synesthetic viewing experience, going beyond the purely visual.

The directive – touch every flower – bears an urgency to connect with one’s natural surroundings, savoring moments for leisure but also hastily before they are gone. The zoomed in perspectives approximate close encounters, enacting an innate urge to stick one’s head into a bouquet. Relishing in a sensory bath, touching every flower requires concentration on the present moment for the sake of instant pleasure.