Portraits of urban lifestyle
Journalist Christina Qvistgaard

Electricity and thus wires are foundations of modern society. We cannot possibly see ourselves existing without them and yet we attempt to disguise them. There is nothing beautiful or aesthetically pleasing about these wires that in many ways are the nerves of our very existence. The artist Henriette Sonne has chosen that set of problems as the background for her new series of paintings which include The Uninvited Guest, A Woman’s True Colours and Conscience Polarity.

Henriette Sonne’s paintings are portraits of the post-modern human being living a hectic urban lifestyle. The wires reflect the human beings while at the same time standing as symbols of the external influences that removes focus from just being alive. ”I have been thinking a lot about the feelings and little voices that live deep down in our stomach – the voices we often choose not to listen to,” explains the artist. ”I could have chosen to just portray a man, but by using the wires my paintings become more charged with meaning. I paint the circumstances that create the human being.”
With that knowledge the wires become a metaphor for how much of our true self we hide. How one of the most fundamental parts of our existence is hidden behind a carefully constructed facade.

The wires as a motive have been chosen to point out how  that which is considered truly ugly can also hide real beauty. ”We live in a society which strives for beautification. Although that society is based on electricity and modern technology we are incredibly busy hiding the physical manifestation – the wires – of that. One example is that you never see the wires in magazines. In that same way we store away parts of ourselves that may not be very nice but still essential to our survival,” says Henriette. ”The Uninvited Guest is a very good example of that. You buy the lamp but not the wire. But the wire is part of the package much like those emotions we won’t admit to or perhaps don’t like very much. They are still part of us.”

The hidden message and expression of the paintings have been the inspiration, but Henriette Sonne is also preoccupied with the aesthetic and graphic possibilities of the wires.
Among other things she has focused a lot on is the spaces the wires create as they lie casually thrown on the floor or to one side. She sees the spaces as a representation of the space between people. Both the spaces between the wires and the blank spaces in the paintings have symbolic values and it is the spaces Henriette Sonne has focused on painting. The wires are created by the blank spaces – not the other way around.

”Who are we when we take away the spaces so we are no longer a clean shape? When we are not something because of our surroundings, cars, houses, jobs, clothes or the cafe we’re sitting in? These are just some of the questions I’ve asked myself,” explains Henriette Sonne. ”What happens when we take away the world around us even if it’s just for a minute? Who are we when we have no help to define ourselves?”