Linnéa Gad
Bio: Linnéa Gad (b.1990) is an artist from Stockholm, Sweden. Her recent solo shows include Erratics at Spencer Brownstone Gallery in New York (2019), Luster Pit at RØM in Copenhagen (2018), and Mound Remover at New Release Gallery in New York (2018). Her ongoing research and work with lime was part of an exhibition and public program at SixtyEight Art Institute, in Copenhagen (2021). In 2023, she will release her first artist-research book, to be published by RSS Press. Gad is the recipient of several grants from The Swedish Arts Grants Committee and is shortlisted for the Frankenthaler Climate Art Awards.
linneagad.com
Instagram: @linneagad
Thesis Exhibition
Artist Statement: I currently collaborate with limestone, oysters, cardboard, bark, and other shell materials that I happen upon. I work in sculpture, printmaking, and installation to create unexpected conversations that awaken empathy for the ongoing vibrant “lives” of these materials.
My antidote to the uncertainty of our future is to elevate things that change quietly over a long time span. A spoon rounded from years of scraping pot corners or a fresco transformed by weather into a cryptic object. My approach to climate change is tactile, a counterpoint to the theoretical and abstract visualizations of this global issue.
I recently began investigating the life cycle of lime, a calcium-containing compound that takes a number of forms—from oyster shells to lapis lazuli. I follow humans' creative—and destructive— relationship with this mineral. To conceptualize my research, I began to make sculptures solely out of lime, guided by its shape-shifting tendencies and its willingness to bind with different versions of itself. The object of this work has not been about communicating something through the material, but rather, letting the material itself be the subject matter.
For me, lime has become a foundation for further material and sculptural inquiries. Expanding on the idea of the shell, I started to work with container materials such as cardboard and bark. Curious resemblances began to appear between my paper pieces and calcium buildup in the sea. Processes of transformation that I witnessed in lime inspired me to work in bronze and porcelain, in each case allowing the materials to reflect processes beyond my control. With this body of work, I like to think about time as a substance integral to the material, so that the work is allowed to decompose, evolve, and eventually disappear.
Echo else (120" x 132" x 231", Oysters, Onondaga Limestone, Lapis Lazuli, Lime Mortar, Goat Hair, Sheet Metal, Welding Slag, Cardboard, Paper Pulp, Bronze, Bismuth Patina, Porcelain, Vitrified Bark, Fossiliferous limestone, Glazed Porcelain tablet, Birch Plywood, Rabbit Skin Glue, Marble Dust, Gofun Shirayuki, salt, toner, sandwashed silk, metal rods, 2022)
First Year Exhibition
L to R: Ever Happened (38” x 60”, Cyanotype on kozo paper, 2021); To Let (42” x 17” x 14”, Cardboard, paper tape, paper pulp, 2021)
