MIA DAMBERG TODAY
Mia Damberg has, in her latest pieces, shown a constant drive to develop herself. These efforts include dealing with her subject matter as well as the use of the new medium of photography. She has become recognized by a wider audience through her textiles-based pieces, describing an autobiographical level of the subjective turned into collective. This sense of crafts has left a mark on her photographical ouevre as an extra level, carefully crafted into the three-dimensional pictures.
Once focused on the contents of Damberg’s production, one notices a change in her pieces. She has used her own image as a starting point for a long period. This seems to be done with and a new page has been turned. The use of models has made it possible for the artist to fully concentrate on directing the scenes. Expulsion refers to the Bible once again and leads one’s mind to the borders of the permitted and the forbidden. Her open question is how do we find our borders, if not by challenging ourselves within failure and success.
The use of art history is obvious in the art of Mia Damberg; we have seen the influence of Louise Bourgeois in past years but now, with the piece Landscape, she turns into more male forefigures. Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray together wrote a text titled Men Before the Mirror (1934). The text is a full concentration of a man onto himself, ignoring the audience, admiring things such as the functionality of the male body. Mia Damberg has used this point of departure to convey the female odalisque as a male one. In the picture you won’t find a man looking for the acceptance of an audience, but rather a narcissistic admiration of one’s own body.
Colour is slowly making its way into Damberg’s production. Red is one of the most powerful colours, bearing in it various symbolical and historical messages. And red is the colour that Damberg chooses to start with. A burning red skirt has been lifted up, opening questions rather than giving answers. In Landscape, a male model lies on a red bed full of sensual possibilities. Red yarns have been used in the artist’s pieces earlier on. What remains to be seen is which colour the artist will next pick out of the various possibilities.
Maaria Niemi arthistorian, artcritic