Glenn Sorensen (1968, Sydney, Australia) has been studying the subject of still lives for many years. He has been concentrating on a few, carefully selected objects, all of them taken from his close surrounding: flowers, cigarettes, toiletry, a little Buddha. The objects stand out from a characteristic inky, black-blue background in light turquoise and purple colors making the paintings resemble night photographs shot with a strong flash. People do appear in his work, too, especially in recent ones, yet they seem frozen in time carrying the same icon-like importance as his paintings of inanimate objects. You may say that Sorensen's paintings of still objects look like portraits while his paintings of women or men look like still lives. In his work Sorensen often exercises reduction making the works bordering the abstract. It is driven by a search for purity and essentiality. This search is reflected in his choice of subject: the objects, sceneries and persons may look easy and everyday. The urgency in which they are painted tells us that they carry a specific enigmatic importance.
Glenn Sorensen is currently an associate proffesor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and studied at the Helsinki Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki and the City Art Institute, Sydney. His solo and group exhibitions include Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen (2021), Annet Gelink Gallery (2020 & 2015), Corvi-Mora, London (2019 & 2016), Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney (2012), Galleria Raucci/Santamaria, Naples (2011), Pump House Gallery, London (2010), Galeri Nicolai Wallner, Copenhagen (2008) and others. He received wide international attention participating in groupshows at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2011), the Musée d'Art Contemporain, Bordaux (2010) and Den Frie, Copenhagen (2009).
