Rune Christensen | Collective Memories
Opening Reception: Thursday, October 23, 6-8 pm
Morgan Lehman Gallery is pleased to present Collective Memories, Rune Christensen’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. These new paintings bring together images of flowers, plants, and shelves that serve as both still lifes and vessels for memory. Rooted in Christensen’s experience of becoming a father, the work reflects on how small moments, especially those shared with his children, are collected, brought home, and allowed to grow over time.
Each leaf, flower, or carefully placed object marks something remembered. The vase appears throughout the work, not only as a container but as a site of cultivation where memory is nurtured and reshaped. The paintings suggest that the ordinary things we carry back from daily life can quietly change us.
The abstract language of pattern presses against the representational imagery, shaped by Christensen’s extensive travels and his interest in textiles as forms of cultural storytelling. References to South American weaving, Nepali prayer flags, Aboriginal dot painting, and wild style graffiti are woven into the surface. The artist now lives with many of these works in his home, and their influence naturally settles into the paintings, never pointing to a single origin but forming a layered visual memory of traditions found across cultures around the world.
In Collective Memories, Christensen offers a meditation on care, presence, and the quiet rhythms of domestic life. Transformed through layers of intricate pattern, his imagery reveals how meaning accumulates over time, until the smallest things bloom and grow toward lasting significance.
Rune Christensen (b. 1980) is a Danish artist. Rune's work is inspired by the process of living: the constant movement that results in encounters between individuals, cultures and societies, encounters affecting everyone involved. Driven by ever-present wanderlust, Christensen paints as he travels. His distinctive expression is shaped by a blend of influences from our diverse world. Within Christensen’s works there is an intensely overwhelming, excited melting pot of scents, colours, gazes and people: each painting the culmination of a rich life. Having exhibited in many places including Denmark, Beirut, Sydney, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Berlin, London and Almaty in Kazakhstan, his works cross as many borders as the artist himself has done.
