Rose Eken - Shrine

Shrine is the new art monograph of Rose Eken. The book displays a collection of her works from the previous five years (2018 - 2022) and is accompanied by essays by art critic and art historian Maria Kjær Themsen, as well as British art critic and author Jonathan Griffin and PhD of Philosophy, Heine Hansen. Darkness and death take center stage in Rose Eken’s new monograph.

While working at punk music venues as a teenager in Copenhagen, Rose Eken developed a fascination with concert detritus. The objects she was made to clean up after an event—cigarette butts, drug paraphernalia, beer cans, discarded clothing, and lost cell phones—became emblems of punk rock culture, which she now reproduces in the form of hand-painted ceramic miniatures.

A trashed chandelier, glazed urns, dildoes, tarot cards and withered flowers. For the past five years, the motifs of artist Rose Eken have changed. Colorful, ceramic installations have been replaced by black elements and an atmosphere of decay, a development closely connected to both global crises and events within her own life, she explains.

“We all carry a darkness, be it based in personality or a consequence of external circumstances. But dark thoughts tend to be tabooed, hidden away or suppressed. At some point we have to choose between getting lost in the pain or gaining strength from the wound”, Rose Eken says. 

Rose Eken’s work within the darker crevasses of culture – from beautiful, toxic plants to busts of heavy metal-heads, witchcraft and black magic – stems from Eken’s own obsession with goth and black metal music, hence the book title Shrine.

“In a time of internet-driven mono-culture, it is even more important to accept the darkness – scars, trauma, sorrow, fear, death and even evil. These themes are important if we want to acknowledge our true selves. I have tried to create a space for contemplation and immersion into darkness and death,” she says.

About the artist

Rose Eken was born in Denmark (1976) and graduated from the Royal College of Art in London in 2003.

She has received critical appraise in US for her solo exhibition ‘Remain In The Light’ at The Hole gallery in New York as well as her more recent solo show ‘Tableau’ at V1 Gallery in Copenhagen, which was acquired by and is currently at display at Aros Museum of Modern Art in Aarhus, Denmark.

Essays: Maria Kjær Themsen, Jonathan Griffin, Heine Hansen

Published by BOOK LAB

Binding:  Hardcover 

Paper: 170 g. Galerie Art Gloss, 120 g. Munken Polar Rough

Language : English