Exhibition // “048″ – Sofie Bird Møller

[Detail] “Interaction” (2012), Acylic on mounted print (advertising poster), 174,5 x 118 cm, framed, Unique

Sofie Bird Møller mixes and matches body language in her new show at Sassa Trülzsch. As with many of her previous street art “Intervention” pieces, the base layer for her art is found material like advertisements, and, as with some of her newer work, old clothes. What happens next is an alteration of these often familiar images such as the largest work, which features a MANGO clothing ad with the text painted over. The body language of models is also painted over in handprints and heavy-handed acrylic paint flourishes, obscuring the models and changing the attitude of their poses and gestures.

Although the faces are obscured in her work, the second-most expressive body parts – the hands and arms – are key to the feel of the artworks. She combines old postcards with bare legs and arms, fingers grasping cigarettes and arms reaching in different directions. The result of these neat collages are clever modifications of conventional images with which the world is over-saturated by now.

Her new experiments with clothing involve the same method of using found T-shirts and applying paint as well. The painted clothes lounge throughout the room with stuffed shopping bags as mannequins. A pair of lonely cherry-red coated boots flop over near the entrance of the gallery. The clothing, though an interesting experiment, doesn’t provoke much thought: they are not as dynamic as her painted ads and collages. However, it signals a progression, growth, and versatility to her work that merits following.

“Interaction” (2012)
Installation view “T-shirt” (2014) & “Collage” (2013)
Installation view “T-shirt” (2014) & “Collage” (2013)
Installation view “Collage” (2013)
Installation view “T-shirt” (2014)

“Interference” (2013), Acrylic on mounted paper (magazine page), 28,5 x 21,5, Unique