Galleri Nicolai Wallner is pleased to present Omsorg, our first solo exhibition with artist Julie Lænkholm.

Julie Lænkholm’s practice has its roots in the ideas and the methods centred around collective learning. Exploring techniques and practices which have traditionally been passed down orally from generation to generation, Lænkholm activates a predominantly female-driven history which has been forgotten or otherwise actively ignored. As such, she brings these narratives directly back into focus and places them within a contemporary discourse.

Lænkholm’s works are often textile in nature. Using materials such as wool, silk and denim, she treats them with natural, plant-based dyes using historic methods, each of which hold a certain significance and intentionality. The specificity and the technical backdrop of this process comes through to create a very tactile, three-dimensional feeling that emanates from the work, unlocking a kind of atmospheric presence that can be readily sensed. Lænkholm finds the poetry inherent in the material.

The works bring us into a world where things feel as if they are in continual evolution, reminding us that the works remain alive long after we see them in their final stage, as they continue to develop as we experience them and interact with them. We become participants of the work, and we activate the work while the work simultaneously activates us as well.

Echoing this back and forth dynamic, the title “Omsorg” is the Danish word for “care”, however the roots of the word, “om sorg”, would be more accurately translated and understood as “about sorrow”. These delicate relationships and energies found between care and tending to sorrow, between giving and receiving, between actions, reactions and inactions, transforming sorrow, can be felt within the exhibition. Constantly in flux, they continue to shift and grow with the works.

There is a generosity inherent in Lænkholm’s practice. Each thread and textile is presented in a way that imparts its energy onwards, and in so doing imparts the knowledge that is transmitted with it. The connections and interaction with the works adds to this consciousness, as we find ourselves becoming integrated into this collective learning process.

Julie Lænkholm (b. 1985, Denmark) lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark. She is a graduate of Parsons, The New School of Design in New York. She also has been educated as a nurse specialising in cardiac surgery, which she practiced while completing her art degree. Lænkholm has had recent solo exhibitions at Matsushima Bunko Museum (Matsushima), Tranen Space for Contemporary Art (Hellerup), and Húsavík Musejm (Húsavík).