KRISTIAN TOUBORG
Name: Kristian Touborg
Age: 36
Birthplace: Roskilde, Denmark
Home: Copenhagen, Denmark
Practice: Painting
Pond Lips, 2023, oil, acrylic and reflective pigments on recycled polyester, courtesy of the artist and Newchild Gallery
Where does your practice originate from?
Where my practice sprouts from is roughly an even mixture of four base ingredients. Firstly you have my early experiences in the graffiti environment - this is where I became familiar with the essential rules of painting and learned how to express myself in this language, I still find it very nostalgic. It was like practicing pronunciation but with my hands. My first jobs were working for a small scaffolding company and this had a strong impact on the way I approach structure. For me, composition is building up layers, surrounding and on top of one another. Secondly, botanical species and the reproduction and variation between plants is fascinating to me. My mother was a botanist and that field also always felt like a natural path for my artistic expression. My father worked as a structural engineer and inventor and on a subconscious level this has definitely shaped my interest in using industrial material and processes for artistic purposes.
What’s something that remains timeless in your eyes?
Nothing is really timeless, all objects are full of time - a hot dog from a fast-food place holds time in the same way that a snail or a dew drop on a rock does, even though the hot dog is so processed and immediate and the rock is so in"nite and elemental. If I think about timelessness, I think about emotions. They don’t have a de"nite start or an end point and exist in more of a flow state.
How do you define your artistic research in three words?
Curios, curiosity and enthusiasm.
What are you dreaming about these days?
My dreams and everyday life are merging and floating together these days. Sometimes I dream about being awake and folding myself being awake back into the dream. I also dream of the future - how it can be, howIhopeforittobe.
Where do you find beauty?
Everywhere - all around me and within other people. I am of course very specific when it comes to aesthetics, but I can also see how the ordinary becomes magical if we look closely enough with the right glasses. A dandelion growing from cracks in the asphalt gutter can be seen as an unwanted weed or as something that brings us hope and beauty through its naked fragility. You can find this double meaning everywhere if you look around.
Sydhavnsblomst, 2023, oil, acrylic and reflective pigments on recycled polyester, courtesy of the artist and Newchild Gallery