Glenn Sorensen (1968, Sydney, AU) has been studying the subject of still lives for many years. He concentrates 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 every day. The urgency in which they are painted tells us that they carry a specific enigmatic importance.