REMAKE/REMODEL

‘The tone is set! Rose Eken’s art is about rock music. An eclectic genre that is both raw and embracing. There is nothing as emotive as music – both to the individual and the collective, music has a unique ability to evoke the most charged of human emotions: love, hatred, intimacy, injustice – and good old-fashioned Weltschmerz. But rock culture also delineates a story of rebellion, revolution and revolt against the sexually repressed bourgeois culture. All of these traits can be found in Eken’s artwork; the wild uncontrolled nerve of rock ’n’ roll subtly curbed by a sensible disposition. Yet what appears restrained and controlled retains a ring of the fierce and the savage’.

This is how the writer and art critic Maria Kjær Themsen begins her introduction to the Danish artist Rose Eken’s catalogue REMAKE/REMODEL. The book presents a significant selection of Eken’s work from 2008 – 2010. Through various media such as ceramics, embroidery, video, watercolour, miniatures in cardboard, Eken (re)constructs worlds recognizable – yet particular, quirky, dark, and uncanny worlds inspired by rock music and the culture surrounding it. The publication consists of 200 pages of colour images with an introductory catalogue text in English and Danish and includes a double-sided A2 colour poster. It has been printed in 500 copies.