Oliver Bugge

f. 1990, Kolding, Denmark

The Rhythmic Rise and Fall of the Currents, 2023
Bronze sculpture on a pallet made of wood from shipwrecks salvaged in the 1920s, mainly Riksäpplet, a Swedish warship that sank in the Stockholm Archipelago in 1676

Breath Heard from Afar, 2023
2200-year-old pottery shards from Nexø, Denmark, in vessels made of plastic and aluminium. The ceramic fragments are used with the permission of the Museum of Bornholm

ΑΡΓΩ, 2023
Oil paint on sea-washed fibreglass found on the Mediterranean coast

Niña, 2023
Oil paint on sea-washed fibreglass found on the Mediterranean coast

Centaur, 2023
Oil paint on sea-washed fibreglass found on the Mediterranean coast

The Moraira Map, 2023
Sea-washed fibreglass found on the Mediterranean coast

Oliver Bugge is interested in the role of the past in the present. In The Rhythmic Rise and Fall of Currents, he explores the multifaceted nature of the Renaissance, an era when ideas from antiquity were revived in humanism and a new view of nature. However, it was also a period of centralised power and warfare with imperialist aspirations that involved the instrumentalization of people and the exploitation of nature through mining and logging. His work Breath Heard from Afar also explores the link between our time and a distant past. Pottery shards from the Iron Age are combined with contemporary materials, such as aluminium and plastic, in a work that bridges a time span of more than two thousand years.

Craftsmanship and knowledge of materials are fundamental to Bugge’s artistic practice. He combines this with an idea-based approach and with theory of history. In his art, he strives to connect opposites to achieve a synthesis: Works with a retrospective character are balanced by something contemporary.

See the interview with Oliver Bugge.