ISSUES

KSENIA PEDAN:
HABITS OF PEOPLE
14/03/2024–27/04/2024

ISSUES presents Ksenia Pedan’s first solo show at the gallery. Employing painting, sculpture and installation, Pedan’s exhibitions create a neutral environment for displaced objects and feelings.

Walking into the gallery, viewers observe three large wardrobe doors of black glass installed on the center wall. Four abstract paintings rendered using crayons made by the artist in pigment, oil and beeswax, are placed on alternate walls. The paintings are sculptural, thick layers of material built up on the surface give way to tracks of color and texture. Then, an electrical cord runs high along the wall, it disappears and comes out again, with frayed wires exposed. Insect sculptures and spotlights appear throughout the installation, both infesting the space. The gallery takes on an empty feeling in Ksenia’s exhibition; technologies such as electrical cords and lighting features flood our everyday spaces to such a degree that we erase their presence in our embodied experience. Here, despite there being plenty of information, the sense of emptiness remains.

KSENIA PEDAN (b. 1986 in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Lives and works in Stockholm) graduated from Goldsmiths, University of London and the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. Recently, Ksenia presented the solo exhibition Reversion at Cell Project Space, London (2023) and in the autumn of 2024, she will exhibit at Bonniers Konsthall in Stockholm. She has previously exhibited extensively as part of an artist duo with Ben Burgis. Selected shows include Fen Glut, Forde, Geneva (2019); Baltic Triennial 13, Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga (2018); Golf Musk, Dortmunder Kunstverein (2017); Victoria Deepwater Terminal Estate, Jerwood Space, London (2017); Oikos, Union Pacific, London (2015).

Selected group exhibitions include BLINK, Trond Mohn Art Collection, Stavanger Art Museum (2023); Downtown Issues II, ISSUES, Stockholm (2023); Playworlds, 2018-2022 at CAC Brétigny, Brétigny-sur-Orge (2022); framför vid under, Varberg Konsthall, Varberg (2021); Downtown Issues, ISSUES, Stockholm (2021); Doors of Paradise, Union Pacific, London (2018); Original Character, Drei, Cologne (2018); Friend of a Friend, Wschód Gallery, Warsaw (2018); 56 Artillery Lane, Raven Row, London (2017); Exercises in Style, Suprainfinit, Bucharest (2016); Lanzarote, Union Pacific (2015).