"While painting is sometimes considered a reflection of identity, I imagine the act of painting as a proposal for how identity comes to be. It is a becoming or an unfolding—sometimes even a failing—rather than an endpoint…Based on the experience of being, and the memory of this experience."
-Thorbjørn Bechmann
PIERMARQ* is pleased to present ‘No debts, no contracts, no ongoing fees’ an exhibition of new work by Danish artist, Thorbjørn Bechmann. This is Bechmann's third exhibition with PIERMARQ* in Sydney.
The new body of work explores Bechmann’s language of painterly abstraction, with his empirical practice repeated in new combinations to construct recognisable yet randomized, ambient imagery. Inspired by experimental jazz musicians who push standards to their limit without being rendered unrecognizable, rhythm and repetition are at the heart of Bechmann’s practice. Each painting is a unique and intimate record of experience and transformation.
The exhibition consists of 14 luminous works of iridescent veils of oil on canvas. The artist writes, “My paintings are like residue of things that were once much clearer and more resolved. They function like visual memories: traces of perturbed, calm or even excited states of mind that have now passed.” The exhibition’s title references the way the work is a combination of decisions, successes, mistakes and responsibilities, which all ultimately belong to the artist. In this statement, Bechmann declares his work as a solitary endeavor of experience and creation, owing nothing beyond the resulting truth of the medium.
Bechmann studied at the Royal Danish Academy of the Arts and has exhibited across Europe, The US and Asia and is represented in both public and private collections, including the Danish Arts Foundation.
