HEM                                “Live From Earth”-Carl G Torstenson’s solo exhibition                        NÄSTA

November 17, 2008 by  
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TCG Nordica-UP Gallery
Opening: 2008.11.24, Monday, 20:00
Duration: 2008.11.24-12.24
tel: 0871-4114962
Add: TCG Nordica, Chuangku, Xibalu 101#, Kunming
www.tcgnordica.com

Carl G Torstenson born in Uppsala Sweden 1948
As an artist he is working with sculpture, painting, and installations, mostly conseptional art or art projects on a theme. In theater and museums he is working with stage design, costumes and more. He started at the theater forty years ago and had his first solo art exhibition in -73.
Since then there have been around fifty solo exhibitions, mostly in Sweden, but also in the USA, Germany, Finland , Japan and Norway.
Since -90 he has worked with his art only and “śmaking rooms”ť is now in the center.
At first it was mostly impressionistic painting but from the beginning of the eighties the inner rooms slowly took over and the work with the theater and the art of his own was more and more influenced by each other.
He is now working in all materials, often in long time projects, often with existential problems like in the rice project Grow Now ltd that contains questions like who has the right to take patent on living materials, as seeds for example.
Rice is a material that he has bin using since -98 in many installations in various themes. One was about the Iraq war called “This is not a wedding”
Other themes have been “Predestination”, what are we borne to be or how to live and similar questions.
All the exhibitions usually contain both paintings and objects.
Participation in many international projects like Eventa II, III, and V on themes like: Wind,ť Water and Mankindť.
During the year -07 there were many art projects in churches, and the latest was in Nykoping called “To measure what can not be measured”ť.
Carl G Torstenson has also made many public assignments and then often used sculpture and worked in different materials as a medium.
For the artwork and coming exhibitions in Kunming and Sweden Carl G Torstenson has together with the artist Annika Haglund collected local materials like soil and indigo and other nature materials during a two and a half months journey, all the way by train and bus from Sweden through Mongolia to Beijing, Inner Mongolia and then small mountain villages down to Kunming.

Exhibition in TCG Nordica KUNMING
by Carl G Torstenson

“LIVE FROM EARTH”
The impressions for this exhibition that I have called “LIVE FROM EARTH”ť comes from the present yourney through Asia together with the artist Annika Haglund
The trip began more than three months ago in Sweden and then we have been traveling with train all the way through Russia , Mongolia , Inner Mongolia, to Beijing and all the way down to Kunming where we are right now and have been working in a studio at TCG Nordica, a fantastic and inspiring place to work at and with so very nice people !
For this artwork, my exhibition in Kunming and also for coming projects in Sweden we have during this long trip collected local materials such as earth in different colors like the deep red Yunnan earth , Indigo blue and other nature materials for to use in the artwork in different ways.
Along the way we have been staying long periods in small villages high up in the mountains and there lived by the minority people. We have seen them working with the earth. Planting and digging, weaving, dying the fabrics and many other things coming from nature. Working hard along the steep mountainsides and there making it possible to grow on the small terraces. Also seen they carry everything they need up and down these mountains.
This project is a tribute for to grow the earth as well as for them who work with the earth and live in symbiosis with nature.
Then there is this question, is it the last generation we now see that is putting there hands in the earth or in the pot of Indigo?
.On the feather way through the Asian countries, that after Kunming goes to Vietnam and Cambodia the plan is to work and do small installations along the way where it is possible. The plan is also then to use local materials.