01.04.2022
Danish artist Søren Krag won the premier Nordic Award at Wednesday’s virtual award ceremony, taking home $1000 in prize money for his work “Deux Mille Fleurs / Two Thousand Flowers.”
Experience Søren Krag’s work virtually.
The artwork was entered in the Still Image category and shortlisted for the Nordic prize. Now in its first year, The Nordic Award is offered in partnership with Sørlandets Kunstmuseum (SKMU) in Norway.
Deux Mille Fleurs is a tapestry installation created by digitally weaving two thousand algorithmically generated, unique flowers.
The French term “Millefleurs,” translates to “Thousand Flowers,” a term that refers to a background style used in medieval and early renaissance tapestry work. The style consists of many different small flowers and plants, typically shown on a darker backdrop.
During the period, weavers were obliged to repeat figure designs by members of the painters’ guild. However, weavers were often permitted to design the floral backgrounds themselves. In an effort to further extrapolate this reversal of the image hierarchy in Deux Mille Fleurs, figures and narrative have been omitted altogether, focusing solely on the ‘background.’
Jury member Nathan Ladd comments on the work: “Visually striking and an engaging referential underpinning. I appreciate the tapestry form as the medium to question the hierarchy of imagery as the historically ignored form of painting is given new life and value as figures and narrative are omitted.”
At the core of the project are computer-generated, hyper stylized symmetrical ’flowers.’ After establishing a number of fixed parameters two thousand unique flowers have been generated algorithmically and digitally woven into a tapestry.
The project has been created in collaboration with engineering PhD student Jonathan Riise. The textile was produced at the factory of the Innvik Selgren company in Sogn og Fjordane under the guidance of artist/designer Kristina D. Aas. The work was first exhibited at Hordaland Art Centre in Bergen Norway.
