The paintings by Jeppe Lauge (b. 1980, Århus, DK) show a fragmented landscape. While using both realistic and abstracted elements, he brings about contradicting sensations, alternating between the peaceful and unsettling. In these paintings, Jeppe documents nature as he sees it. He roams through field and forest, camera in hand, as a preliminary investigation for his work. The photos are digitally combined, altered, and layered to form a new composite image that becomes the sketch for the work, which he pastily paints in oil on canvas.
The compositions, consisting of several images or perspectives, are his entrance into depicting an environment undergoing an never stopping evolution, touched and formed by both nature and humankind. The paintings encourage a confrontation, or dialog, with the viewer. We are invited to step into the landscape, to take part in the space and get connected with it. Simultaneously, the abstract elements are influencing and changing the way we perceive the landscape.
Behind Lauge’s artificial images lies his research into the relationship between man and nature, the way we tend to view our environment, and how we influence each other. Jeppe doesn’t care much for the predominantly romanticized image of nature we hold dear, but believes that it is undeniable that nature has an enormous impact, both in a physical and a psychological sense. ‘Mediated nature’ is the term he uses to describe how we shape the environment we live in. The geometric abstractions are not only a comment on the shaping of our environment, but also function as a comment on our digital existence.
In his newest works, Jeppe uses these abstract patterns to create a kind of fog. As he explains: ‘When walking through a fog, your senses are sharpened in a way. The colour spectrum is different, what you’re able to see is limited, but what's just around you gains a totally different kind of attention. It’s interesting that by adding a geometric abstraction I am able to direct what gets your attention.’