Aleksander Stav:
Apeiron

Based on nature and wildlife, Aleksander Stav addresses various topics towards man-made technology and cultural-historical thought. How people historically transform their understanding of nature, through their discovery of it, where the transformation of nature transcends the real, to create a rather more imaginative, artificial world, and the authentic disappears.

A sculpture immediately catches our attention. "The Egress" is a three-meter white beluga whale made of fiberglass and epoxy, resulting in giving the sculpture a polished and plastic look, almost like it was a shiny new toy. The white whale appears both playful and humorous, but undeniably also melancholy in its misplaced loneliness in the room.

Several of Aleksander Stav's sculptures in wood are characterized by extensive processing using an old Japanese technique. The sculpture "Old Tjikko" of massive older roots from the artist's own garden is treated with a flamethrower that makes the wood charred on the outside, and protects the tree on the inside. The same process is used on the large wall sculpture «Erta Ale». The title comes from the most active volcano in Ethiopia located just above the East African rift system, where the tectonic plates slowly slide apart.
In the sculpture's black charred form, one can imagine that the sculpture has been exposed to the violent temperament of the Ethiopian volcano.

Alexander Stav reminds us of the life-giving and destructive power of nature. The artist wants to avoid moralizing about the destructive actions of the human species, instead he expresses a deeply felt relationship to nature.