Artist talk // Paula Duvå & Mads Holm

Artist talk // 19:00

The exhibition Double Sunset shows new works by artists Paula Duvå and Mads Holm. Having collaborated many times in the past, Double Sunset marks a natural progression in their working relationship as they share co-authorship for the first time.

A double sunset is an astro-geographical phenomenon in which the sun appears to set twice in the same evening, when viewed from a specific point. This rare event is as much an optical illusion as it is a very real experience for the observer. Like a double sunset, Duvå and Holm’s new work oscillates between the real and fictional and challenges, by its staged nature, photography’s conventional ties to reality.

The universe Double Sunset creates holds an uncanny sense of fragility, of dreams and awaiting violence. Disparate scenes, portraits and abstract textures share a sense of foreboding. Ostensibly beautiful, there lurks within them a threat belied by calmness.

As we enter a new age defined by the impact mankind has had on the planet, it is worth reminding ourselves that we remain vulnerable to the forces of nature. Double Sunset alludes to these forces – a sandstorm, a heaving wave, the envelopment of cloud formations. Though we have taken control of this earth, the violence we have perpetrated in order to do so will be reciprocated. And our recompense may well come with beauty.

Mads Holm (1990) is a photographer, teacher and writer. Paula Duvå (1991) is an artist. Duvå and Holm have collaborated since 2015. In 2017 they created the exhibition project I look at War which has been shown at Banja Rathnov Galleri og Kunsthandel in Copenhagen and at Soiz Galerie in Passau, Germany. In 2022 they founded Foto Studio which they run on a daily basis next to their common and individual practices.