Conversation between Mette Hansen, author, and Carin Blücher, 2022
August 2022
MH Using a camera, you depict a scene that consists of painting, objects, and one or more human figures. Sometimes, it’s hard to make out what we are seeing, a collage that fools our eyes.
CB In my earlier works, humans were a central subject, and the rest was surroundings and settings. This has changed since then, and I want to visualise that all is one. As in an abstract painting, where every colour is significant, a green body of colour can represent a leaf but is not only valued according to its meaning.
MH Are you saying that the line between human and surroundings dissolves?
CB That is what I’m striving for.
MH So, how do you construct your images?
CB I start by doing thorough sketch work. My earlier pieces were based on a finished idea, but I work more intuitively now, with no preconceptions when I start sketching.
MH When do you know if a motif is right, something worth completing?
CG When the sketch IS. Then I know there’s no doubt about it.
MH What’s the next step, when the sketch is done?
CB That’s when I start working in practice to create a painting in the expanded space. Throughout the process, I use the camera’s viewfinder, which provides the frame for my creating.
MH Are you looking for a particular style, apart from the motif?
CB I want to liberate myself from three-dimensionality and let everything be like a painting. When I look through the viewfinder, this dispels my notions that what I see is three-dimensional. I exclude everything beyond the viewfinder.
MH What role do humans play in your pictures?
CB The humans interact with everything, they’re part of the whole. A circle, for instance, and a human limb can form a blue shape poised on another shape. In my stagings, humans always have a task, such as holding something or fading into a painting.
MH Does the final photograph usually match your original sketch?
CB The encounter with reality during the process causes unexpected challenges that force me to come up with new methods to implement the sketch. To start with, for instance, I have no idea how I’m going to create a vertical circle floating in space. When I paint the circle, I discover that it looks horizontal when I see it through the viewfinder. I paint the circle again until it looks vertical in the viewfinder, whereas the painting itself is warped.
MH It sounds like the method is essential, it would have been easy to produce the images digitally.
CB The reason why I want to do it myself is the magic that takes place between the physical space and the camera image, that which surprises me.
MH Illusion interests you?
CB It’s because in my experience, we see only a fraction of what goes on in reality.
MH How do you find your inspiration?
CB By sitting down and working, gradually getting into a flow. I keep going until I reach a point where it feels true.
MH What is true?
CB It doesn’t need to be true in the sense that the portrayed scene has happened, but that it says something true about reality.
MH How would you say your imagery has evolved over the years?
CB Initially, I composed myself into the set, or as in the model project, where I demonstrated how you can be made invisible. Today, I see reality as more composite, everything is connected. In one of my images, “Matter”, a figure sits curled up on what looks like a box. In fact, there is no box, it’s painted. Both form and content are an illusion. The box, reality, the thoughts we create, are nothing, actually.
Texts in English
Texts in Swedish
Samtal mellan Mette Hansen och Carin Blücher, 2022
Carolina Söderholm, Recension, 2022
Kristina Maria Mezei, Omkonst.se
Olle Niklassson, Recension, 2020
Carolina Söderholm, Recension, 2018
Johanna Gredfors Ottesen, Recension, 2018
Gertrud Sandqvist, Katalogtext, 2018
På annan plats, Utställningskatalog, Ystads Konstmuseum, Redaktör Nils Magnus Sköld, 2017
Thomas Millroth, Katalogtext, 2014
Carolina Söderholm, Recension, 2013
Cristina Karlstam, Recension, 2010
Gabriella Ioannides, Intervju, 2009
Carolina Söderholm, Recension, 2007
Britte Montigny, Recension, Skånska Dagbladet, 2007/09/14
Jutta Kübler Boström, Recension, Värmlands Folkblad, 2007/05/14
Conny CA Malmqvist, Recension, Kvällsposten, 2006/09/24
Carolina Söderholm, Recension, Sydsvenska Dagbladet, 2005/01/13
Patric Moreau, Recension, Sydsvenska Dagbladet, 2005/05/08
Conny CA Malmqvist, Recension, Kvällsposten, 2005/05/07
Gunilla Gran-Hinnfors, Recension, 2002
Gunilla Gran-Hinnfors, Recension, Göteborgs-Posten, 1998/11/19