Asger Harbou Gjerdevik

Mallorca Suite

03.07.21 – 05.09.21

Suite noun (MUSIC)
A piece of music with several parts, usually all in the same key (Cambridge Dictionary)

Asger Harbou Gjerdevik’s paintings for his exhibition at CCA Andratx are all created on site in the period where winter slowly releases and opens up for the warm sun and new growth.
The paintings refer to light, music and daily life. Compositions revolving in a melody where a string of elements and situations meet. At the same time, there are elements of different inspirations from art history, architecture, and nature around him, where classical themes gain a simultaneous perspective. Gjerdevik often uses symbols that refer to time, life and death, e.g. the skull, the flame, the tree, the sun.

The exhibition title Mallorca Suite explicitly refers to the place of creation of the paintings and the process played in the same key. During a stay for a couple of months Asger Harbou Gjerdevik has worked on site at the CCA Studios creating a series of paintings revolving around liberation and the borderless/free-spirited painting. Using elements from daily life and his surroundings the ‘Mallorca Suite’ paintings use motifs taken from the island and incorporating them, the sun, eagles, orange trees, the mountains as well as the terracotta and earthly tones mixes into this new set of works. Underlying themes such as isolation and concern about where things are heading disrupts this otherwise idyllic scenario. In his work Asger works in the field of painting in-between the figurative and abstract, motifs are created and shattered again, new stories arises and the series of works can be seen as a musical album where each painting is a song. Music is key to approach Asger’s paintings, like the jazz suite, the creation is a succession from the former, transformed and transfigured and then falling back into place.

The French word “suite” derives from “suivre” (“to follow”); thus, it denotes a succession of constituent parts that can be in a specific order or more generally in a group associated with something central. Musically, a suite is a series of distinct instrumental movements or sections with some element of unity, usually intended to be performed as a single unit.

ASGER HARBOU GJERDEVIK works in painting, sculpture, collage and drawing. Film science, music, art history and architecture are sources of inspiration. Layers of compositions filled with iconic symbols and graphic elements. Gjerdevik is a graduate of Central Saint Martins and holds a MFA from the Royal College of Art, London 2017. His debut solo exhibition in Copenhagen was ‘DIVE’ with Alice Folker in 2018, and in 2019 Kunstforeningen Gl. Strand showed his critically acclaimed solo exhibition ‘Driving Home for Christmas’. Recently he had a solo exhibition at Politikens Forhal.