![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/pastry.jpg\")
“Cinnamon Roll”, 2015, Courtesy the artist and Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich<\/p>\n “Cinnamon Roll”, 2015, Courtesy the artist and Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich<\/p>\n
While I\u2019m waiting for Torbj\u00f8rn R\u00f8dland to surface, I\u2019m fixated on one particular image. In the centre of the wall at C\/O Berlin, the photograph shows an unravelled danish pastry with a set of dentures tucked into its centre. “Cinnamon Roll”, part of R\u00f8dland’s “Back in Touch” show at the gallery, verges on the grotesque; it typifies the kind of composition for which R\u00f8dland has become so renowned. Foodstuffs, hair tufts and isolated body parts populate his imagery, which has been branded \u201cperverted\u201d and \u201cpeculiar\u201d by many.\u00a0R\u00f8dland, however, resists such definitions of his work.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cFor me, photography was never about going out into the world and \u2018capturing moments\u2019, it was always about seeing how far I could push it\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n When I sit down with R\u00f8dland, he\u2019s calm and almost distant, intently focused on picking specks of fluff from his trousers as we talk. \u201cI don\u2019t think [the work] is that weird,\u201d he tells me. \u201cFor me, photography was never about going out into the world and \u2018capturing moments\u2019. It was always about seeing how far I could push it and seeing what I could make happen in front of the camera if I took a little bit more of an active approach.\u201d Indeed, R\u00f8dland\u2019s photography is far from reportage; instead, it tends towards the highly constructed. \u201cThere\u2019s always been this pull towards the fantastical,\u201d he tells me, explaining the “Hollyweird” aesthetic of his close-ups. By placing objects in such staged scenarios, R\u00f8dland not only creates a dynamic that\u2019s ambiguous and often uneasy, but also symbolic. \u201cIt\u2019s about wanting the photograph to have emotional presence for the viewer,\u201d he explains, \u201cand some kind of symbolic potency. I feel I have to shake photography and throw something at it and push it to make it come alive \u2014 to try to keep it from just being dead and boring.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBack in Touch\u201d is one of many recent European exhibitions for R\u00f8dland, and it\u2019s full of characteristically intriguing images that cause the viewer to question exactly what the f*** is going on.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s representative of what I\u2019ve been showing this year,\u201d he tells me. \u201cThis mix of recent portraits and object photographs; portraits with hands on them; objects with hands on them and body parts with hands on them.\u201d \u201cRecent\u201d, for R\u00f8dland, seems to be within the past 2 or 3 years; a large portion of the works on display at “Back In Touch” are from 2015. \u201cIt\u2019s part of the process,\u201d he explains. \u201cI keep things lying around for a while. Sometimes there\u2019ll be seven years between when I make the negative and make the first print of it.\u201d This process creates double-dated works that are simultaneously old and new \u2014 \u201cit\u2019s something else when you finally see them in full size.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI feel I have to shake photography and throw something at it and push it to make it come alive \u2014 to try to keep it from just being dead and boring\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Most of R\u00f8dland\u2019s work as we now know it is time-stamped from 2003 onwards \u2014 before then, he lacked the technical means to take such images. \u201cThat\u2019s when I started doing close-ups,\u201d he explains, \u201cand I moved more into object photography as a continuation of that.\u201d Works such as “<\/span>Arms”\u00a0<\/span>(2008), which shows an octopus tentacle emerging from a sleeve and delicately coiling itself around a woman\u2019s hand and “<\/span>Trichotillomania”\u00a0<\/span>(2010), of oranges scattered with human hair, demonstrate the fragile yet decidedly frank manner through which R\u00f8dland makes us accept surprising compositions.<\/span>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Torbjorn.jpg\")
“Untitled”, 2009-2013, Courtesy Private Collection<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/03_tr_trichotillomania.jpg\")
“Trichotillomania”, 2010. Image: Courtesy of MAI 36 Galerie, Zurich.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/torb.jpg\")
“Stockings, Jeans and Carpeted Stairs”, 2013-2017. Image: Courtesy of Private Collection.<\/p>\n
\nBut R\u00f8dland\u2019s work extends beyond close-ups \u2014 self-portraits, Norwegian landscapes and beautiful models (albeit against unusual backdrops) are also part of his diverse repertoire. His early work establishes his fascination with the fantastical, and foreshadows his later journey into the aforementioned “perversion”. This varied exploration uncovers R\u00f8dland\u2019s mastery of photography \u2014 which comes as no surprise, considering his 36-year love affair with the medium. R\u00f8dland recalls picking up a camera as early as age 11.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/torbjorn5.jpg\")
“Wordless No. 03”, 2010. Image: Courtesy of NILS STAERK Gallery.<\/p>\n