Carl Boutard – Paper Space

Cecilia Hillström Gallery is pleased to present Carl Boutard's first solo exhibition at the gallery, featuring new sculptures in bronze and cardboard. In Paper Space, Boutard focuses on spatiality and transformation of an object; its materiality, scale and position.

The relationship between man and nature is a constant source of inspiration for Carl Boutard. He is incessantly collecting fragments and objects from nature as an important part of his day-to-day practice, creating a foundation for the sculptures to come. Seemingly unrelated parts are combined when transformed into bronze or other materials. Building blocks are attached to one another in an intuitive process, enabled by the previous assembly of elements. The thorough investigation of form and space is key in Boutard's sculptural practice.

Paper Space consists of objects in bronze, paper and cardboard. Boutard uses materials that he encounters on a daily basis: tissue paper, banana cardboard boxes and other items which are usually thrown in the recycling bin. The title Paper Space refers to a mode in digital software where one defines the scale parameters, going from a digital environment to a tangible and physical object or surface. This particular process has fascinated Boutard for a long time, especially during this period of lockdown when so much time has been spent in front of the screen losing oneself in the virtual dimension.

Carl Boutard, born 1975 in Kiruna, has studied at Malmö Art Academy and Iceland University of the Arts, Reykjavik. In addition, he has studied architecture at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Boutard's work has been shown at Malmö Art Museum, Lunds Konsthall, Sven-Harrys konstmuseum, Artipelag, Bonniers Konsthall and Centre Culturel Suédois in Paris. Boutard was awarded the ISCP-scholarship in New York in 2015. His public commissions include sites in Stockholm, Uppsala, Karlstad, Lund and Heidenheim, Germany, most recently the sculptural project Mo(der)nism in Åkeshov commissioned by Stockholm Konst. He is represented in the collections at Malmö Art Museum, Public Art Agency Sweden and Skissernas Museum - Museum of Artistic Process and Public Art in Lund.