Four Boxes is excited to present Growing Things, a solo show by Danish artist Anna Fro Vodder. The exhibition consists of new paintings, collages, works on paper, as well as a selection of unique book objects from the last few years. A recurring theme throughout the exhibition is the relationship between the organic and the inanimate; nature and culture; the random and the planned.

Through the works on display Vodder examines the relationship between culture, in the sense of the artificial and inanimate, and its opposite, in the sense of the raw, the uncultivated, nature. Her pictures contain traces of actions and human expression; the painterly process and the movement of the hand. She deliberately employs effects produced by chance in her abstract images, and contrasts these with the found objects, cut-outs and materials which she incorporates into her paintings and collages. Vodder is interested in our society’s fascination and desire for things. We live in a consumer culture where everything considered outdated is thrown out. But all those things do not vanish completely. Instead, they settle as traces and impressions, smashed and ground to dust. The stuff still circulates around us as a film of dead skin cells.

With the title Growing Things, which can be understood both as the act of cultivating something and as something which grows by itself, Vodder draws attention to the phenomenon of growth. In the exhibition she examines growth in the sense of a bodily, physical experience, but she also looks at growth as a phenomenon which in our culture is often looked at in a positive way; to grow and to expand is seen as something positive, as an expression of human development and economic progress. The title of the exhibition also points to Vodder‘s understanding of art as an almost spiritually based ‘space’; the leap from thought to action generates material, and new things, which have their own life, grow forth and again inspire new thoughts.

In her new works, Vodder has also considered Four Boxes’ particular architecture, the way in which the volumes of the building create space and frames. As the building itself, with its yards and large window panels, the exhibition reflects on the relationship between inside and outside, and on how architecture, and our environment generally, influences our behaviour and effect our experience of the world.

Anna Fro Vodder (b. 1974) graduated from The Royal Danish Academy of Art, and is represented by Andersen‘s Contemporary, Copenhagen. Vodder has been the recipient of Aage and Yelva Nimbs Trust’s Honourable Prize (2014), Sven Hols’ Honourable Prize (2013), The Danish Art Agency’s Three Year Grant (2006 – 2009), Friends of Horsens Art Museum Art Prize (2005). In 2005 she designed a stamp for Post Denmark.

Selected recent exhibitions: Svens Bibliotek, group show, Bakkehus Museum, Copenhagen (2015); Contemporary art from Denmark, group show, European Central Bank, Frankfurt (2014. Catalogue); Moving like an antique lizard, solo show, Andersen’s Contemporary, Copenhagen (2012); SØLLR, solo show, Vesthimmerlands Art Museum, Års (2012); Restless Confetti, solo show, Marie Kirkegaard Gallery, Copenhagen (2011); True Faith, group show, Andersen’s Contemporary, Copenhagen (2011). Vodder is represented in the collection of Horsens Art Museum.