Montanasalen is a meeting room where a table and sixteen seats are a precondition. Montanasalen is an extraordinary meeting room at Kunstforeningen GL STRAND where visual artist, in changing installations, investigate the significance of settings and decorations for the meeting situation. The current decoration of Montanasalen has been created by Malene Bach.
 

The table is a shared focus of our attention in the meeting situation. It is kind of war room table, a map according to which we can navigate freely and intuitively. It is made of three ash planks, cut diagonally in order to make use of the whole width of the tree trunk. I have rubbed pigments into the surface of the wood with lined wax. The technique brings out the structure of the wood and makes clear what the painting consists of. ”I have created a table with a pigment painting on wood, chairs draped as a kind of textile collages, and a white paper frieze on grey walls. The play of colour unfolds in the centre, and the surrounding walls form a background as negative motifs.

The colour palette in the installation draws on classic pigments from Thorvaldsens Museum, but also on modern colour phenomena; in particular, the interference and metallic effect of the textiles are great fun for me as a painter, because they mix the colours before our eyes, and are part of the play of the installation, which form transitions in the tactile qualities of different materials. Moreover, the colour effects of the modern textiles help to remove the earnestness from the more self-important of the classic colours. Not in a superficial way, but an inner tension arises that challenges our urge to categorize.

On the table, the wall and the chairs, I have worked with geometrical figures which relate in scale to the body. The figures too are interrelated, just as the space between them leaves room for the figures and materials to change or alter character along the way. My paper frieze in Montanasalen can be seen as an extension of Sonne's frieze on the outer walls of Thorvaldsens Museum across the street."