In- Gate Gallery is pleased to present the inaugural exhibition in the new Brussels location, the solo show of Danja Akulin Between the Lines, on view from May 19 until July 16, 2022.
The exposition Between the Lines brings together black-and-white drawings by Danja Akulin (b.1977) created between 2012 and 2022. The artist lives and works in Berlin since 2000.
For his first show with the gallery Danja Akulin has chosen the title “Between the Lines“ as a reflection of the meanings depicted through sensory images, the cognition of reality out of the physical and material space. The selection of the artworks on display presents large format drawings created in the artist’s signature technique - graphite and pencil on paper mounted on canvas, or in charcoal on canvas.
Danja Akulin creates black-and-white landscapes in monochrome technique, deliberately choosing a laconic language of drawing as an instrument that makes it possible to convey the idea of the image in the most concentrated and pure form.
Each black and white space represents a new page of reality constructed by the artist and gives the opportunity to touch the mystery of visible life forms, to dive through the superficial level of perception, reading “between the lines".
Symbols and signs intersect with iconic landscapes, scenes and fragments at the level of perceptions and meanings. Compositions by Danja Akulin are born from the artist's imagination or memories, maybe it explains why sometimes they are perceived as surreal, creating the state of half-dream, half-reality, the feeling of a perfect image capture just for an instant. Akulin’s laconic spaces create the link with another level of perception and meanings, guiding the viewer through the sensory image. As soon as we try to hold on to the image itself, it becomes defragmented, almost abstract, balancing on the border of appearance and disappearance.
One of the essential senses and themes of Danja Akulin’s works is to approach the mystical basis and the roots of the nature as a sophisticated vital structure, comprehending and rethinking the codes and formulas of its existence. The subject of the artist’s reflections and research is the logic and mystery of the interaction of built-up elements of the nature, the predestination of its internal processes and the sequence of its life cycles. Thats why in his artistic research he often reproduces and reimagines the same composition and elements.
The repetition in the artist’s vision has a philosophical aspect. Graphic images as a framework and a visual formula turn into a canon and are filled with new content and meaning in each replica, which is perceived as a unique mood, sound, and energy. Danja Akulin’s works are both analytical and personal, a strict external structure, a conventional form filled with emotions, a special state, experienced and "lived" in different ways.
