struggle
We are very pleased to present Ditte Ejlerskov's fantastic "The Goddess Intaglio Prints". The pictures continue Ejlerskov's investigation of the happiness hormone oxytocin, that has been going on for a number of years. "The Goddess" referred to in the title of the work is the oxytocin goddess herself, who finds herself in a constant battle with her nemesis, adrenaline.
Oxytocin is the so-called love hormone that the body is filled with during intimate moments, for women also during childbirth and pregnancy. This happiness hormone cannot be present in the body at the same time as its opposite, the so-called "fight and flight" hormone adrenaline. The battle between these two hormones – between love and aggression – has long interested Ditte Ejlerskov. In several exhibitions, she has explored the subject and, among other things, formed her own oxytocin cult that worships the oxytocin goddess.
She has visualized the eternal wrestling match between the two hormones in a series of both digital and physical sculptures depicting two athletic, naked, female wrestlers. The motif is Ejlerskov's own variation on one of the most famous works of art in art history, "the Uffizi wrestlers", the ancient Greek marble sculpture depicting two male wrestlers that can be viewed at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
It is these wrestling women that can be found in "The Goddess Intaglio Prints". From different angles, we get to see their intimate struggle. But it's not two sexualized naked women we get to follow, but the close combat of two avatars. The skin is made up of a network of threads and the eyes are robotically looking blankly at us.
Within the framework of "The Goddess Intaglio Prints" many pairs of opposites are accommodated: the digital technology with which the motif was produced, combined with the many-thousand-year-old sculptural template and the many-hundred-year-old printing technology; the eternal battle between happiness/oxytocin and anger/adrenaline; the contrast between the common image of the naked, exposed female body and the image we are presented here of the fighting, athletic avatar.
Ditte Ejlerskov has quickly reached a prominent position on the Nordic art scene. In 2009, she received her Master of Fine Arts from Malmö Art Academy and has since exhibited at art galleries and museums mostly around the Nordic region and Germany. Her work can be found in a number of important museum collections.
The prints were produced at Ateljé Larsen in Helsingborg, one of the Nordics' foremost workshops for intaglio printmaking. Each color is printed on thick cotton paper with a plate that is inked in by hand. The motifs are made in small editions of 30 prints.
