Matias Faldbakken: Gas Canisters

I found the artist Matias Faldbakken on Pinterest and upon reading about his work I found many parallels to the conceptual and visual tones I am always drawn to. Matias is interested in languages of underground youth cultures (much like my early work), vandalism and extremism. A lot of his sculptural work uses ready-mades that evoke a strong sense of danger, for example gas canisters used in the German military in 1939. Often there is abrupt manipulation of these objects - piercing, cutting, compressing the materials to suggest violence. The anarchic, vandalistic and violent language of the urban environment interests Faldbakken, and contextualises much of his work. Blurring the line between the readymade and fabricated sculpture, this work exists simultaneously as a reference to the real world of metropolitan dystopia and as pure formal gesture. The violent, urban environment is what I am always drawn to, more specifically in terms of the personal headspace regarding it - putting the mind in a dangerous position. The dystopian feel to his work is also how my work tends to be perceived.

I just wish I could obtain materials in the way he has been able to. Ive always been interested in giant gas canisters like BELOW, because hospital gas is always stolen and used for nitros oxide balloons in illegal squat raves.

Matias Faldbakken, foreground: Gas Sculpture; background: Four Flat Boxes, both 2014, installation view.