Oda Sønderland

The Matrician is a solo exhibition at GATHERING featuring groupings of six paintings, sculptures and poems, each group representing an individual story. It opened on the 25th of June and will be running until the 1st of August. The opening night on the 24th of June included a performance with a presentation and tour of the exhibition, presenting the fictional museum setting as if real.

(Text from gallery website)

“But then, one has discovered the gateway to the environments, for everything a subject perceives belongs to its perception world [Merkwelt], and everything it produces, to its effect world [Wirkwelt]. These two worlds, of perception and production of effects, form one closed unit, the environment.”¹

When biologist Jakob von Uexküll coined the term Unwelt, he was examining the senses of various organisms: ticks, sea urchins, amoebae, jellyfish. Interested in how living beings perceived their environments, he argued that organisms experience life as subjects through their own reference frames, or, Umwelt. If, as Uexküll argued, every living creature inhabits a world of its own, any belief held in the existence of one and only one world, space and time for all living beings must be in doubt. Rather, we might open our minds to the immeasurable perceptual worlds in current existence, with each organism existing in its own sensory universe.

The objects on display in The Matrician are remnants of one of these such worlds. A brain, shoulderblade, heart, hipbone, nerve and cochlea exhibit the remains of an unknown species of creature that fell to Earth at an unknown time following the cataclysm of an alien meteorite. These fragments spread across our planet and hold the story of a life-form, the world they lived in constituted through their specific ways of perceiving their Umwelten. One took on the form of a body built with wooden flesh, bones of stone and fungal tissue. Another has an existence entirely experienced through rhythmic functions in a body of rocks. Poems accompany the extraterrestrial organs, tracing their thoughts and revealing the life and demise of the creatures. Transcribed into human language, the poems reflect what little information we have on the mysterious nature of these entities, while also illuminating their final death scenes.

Sønderland’s watercolour counterparts to the fossilised remains allow us to speculate on these life-forms through our own narrative universe, our own Umwelt. The artist metabolises the cosmic and esoteric evolution of these entities into scenes vaguely familiar, yet unidentified: a figure on the brink of discovery in Spell; a desolate landscape of Ember, in which an unknown substance burns into trees like an opening into an abyss, or fire through flesh; Compass’s icy anthropomorphic forest with the haunting blue palette and evocative mood of Harald Sohlberg. Rendered delicately, the paintings offer a material history to the cosmic remnants on display. By pairing the primordial artefacts with her paintings, Sønderland explores the porous and temporal layering of our supposed reality, subverting the objet trouvé into an act of cosmogenesis, where new worlds unfold through material transformation and uncharted imagination. At the core of Sønderland’s narrative is death and its cyclical nature; through mortality, we can explore the possibilities and different forms that life can take in the universe.»

¹ Jakob von Uexküll, A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans, 1934.

(Text from performance)

Art illuminates science in this exhibition, showcasing six paintings alongside six archaeological finds and six accompanying poems.

It all started with the discovery of a peculiar stone, found in a dense forest by the foot of a mountain. It was brought into a laboratory for analysis, where scientists discovered a strange rhythmic pattern inscribed into its surface. They ran a scan of the pattern through an AI model capable of analyzing and comparing structural rhythms. The analysis revealed that the pattern shared striking similarities with the rhythms of human language. By further training the AI to analyze and compare variations of language, they were eventually able to translate the mysterious pattern into English, which resulted in a cohesive poem. The poem describes the life and death of a creature that once existed, along with its environment and lived experience. As five other objects bearing similar patterns were later discovered, we now have a total of six body parts from different creatures, all showcased here tonight. Every poem ends with the death of its creature, and they have therefore been named Death Poems. This may remind you of the famous Egyptian funerary texts, which accompanied the dead into the afterlife to protect and guide them. These poems, however, are less concerned with what comes after death than with the stoic acceptance of the end itself.

The origin of these creatures lies in a life form that arrived with an interstellar object, most likely a comet, which exploded upon entering Earth’s atmosphere with its fragments scattered across the planet. It had an ability to manipulate and control the electromagnetic field, as well as other organisms, in order to gather the materials around it to construct a body for itself. Its surroundings therefore determined both its physical form and its experience of the world. It is therefore called The Matrician, as it is a manipulator of the matrix of our existence.

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We will start with looking at the first piece that was found, the hipbone. The creature describes how it used wood to create its muscle, stone as its skeleton while controlling fungus to work as its binding tissue. By using fungi, it was able to be connected with the Wood Wide Web and gather nutrition from this source. This way it could exist as a wandering tree. Unfortunately, the whole of the forest was burnt down in a forest fire, and its experience is shared with us in this poem.

Ember

Tough joint of stone
Tissue of shroom
Bend this wood
To hardened skin

I roam this land
Forest evergreen
Sparrows painted black
A blue man of dawn

The ground sucked dry
A summer of burning air
All the leaves crusted
Grass like strands of hair

First a million ants
Then a hundred deer
All had their eyes
Blinded with fear

I hear a thousand gallops
Of crackling little teeth
Hungry as it is
It just wants to exist

Everything is eaten
By the little beast
Resting in the ember
Feeding my last piece

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The next piece we are looking at is a cochlea, which is a piece of bone that you have in your ear. It can be compared to work like a microphone, translating acoustic vibrations into electrical neural impulses, which gives us the experience of sound. Here, the creature took on a form similar to that of a bone-eating worm, however with the ability to grow numerous arms at will and to move around freely. It resided around a whale fall, which can be the source of a flourishing, chemically based ecosystem at the bottom of the sea. As there were only bones left, the creature lived in a quiet and peaceful environment on its own, feeding on the last of the bones. However, after finding a snail house and placing it on its head, it was suddenly met with another reality as it could hear the traces of sound from the coral reef that the snail house had come from. This led to a whole new experience of vibrancy for the creature, leading it to use its entire reservoir of nutrients in a final dance of excitement.

Pirouette

Forest fallen of the sky
Armored walls in cavity
The white roof of a rib
Running the muted city

Ferrous, grabbing arms
Floaters in liquid wind
Bind them all to me
Sprouting every limb

See me twirl
I’m a lovely girl
Cochlea head
Bed of crimson thread

Spiral house, an ear
Hear a buzzing red
Rings of fluttering blue
Strains line a yellow hue

I curl, stretch, then linger
Love bursting through
Every note tingle
This world is all new

Running on fumes
One last pirouette
I will take the toll
for my little death

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What we see here is a piece of quartz with borax crystals grown on its surface; in the past it functioned as a heart. After a fragment landed in the bottom of a pond, the creature was able to anchor itself to a rock of quartz and manipulate the electromagnetic field to heat and slowly evaporate the water while extracting wanted minerals off the ground. This way it could create a concentrated bath of borax, so that over the course of hundreds of years and with the help of trees filling in the shrinking pond, it was able to build a body for itself in an attempt to find its way home.

Compass

Dry the waters
Of the blackened void
Light the little fires
Heavy roots fold

Little seeds of star
Gather round me
Grow to a spear
An all seeing sphere

Pointed to the sun
All the mirrors burn
Wake the one who
Await for my return

Veil of darkest night
A million blinking eyes
Sail across the cradle
Arise to then demise

Betrayal of the flesh
Or the lasting suns
grand gesture turned
To all hope burned

Slowly, with wind
Rain fills the pond
All the weight of sorrow
Crushing the bond

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This wooden piece was once the shoulder blade of a variant of the life form. If you look closely at its surface, you can see twirling patterns that might remind one of streams in flowing water. Its body would once have been water itself, using pieces of driftwood as anchor points to gain agency within the water. In this way, it could move around freely, morphing and dancing with the currents. However, one day a long and heavy monsoon swept through its river home, leading to a flood of the river. A long drought followed, and the river was gone with it.

Riverbed

Once I play the fiddle
Currents move the land
Hold the wood
You will feel me

Endless rain soar
Floods rise all the floor
Heavens cloaked in teal
Sight closed like a door

Shoulder, head and feet
Scattered in every stream
Swirling rings baroque
A mare ran this dream

Ten suns awakened
Land cried all its tears
Peeling off the dirt
Gathered over the years

Acres of autumn gold
Carpet of orange leaves
Amongst all this love
Lay me in a bed of soil

A final drop remains
In the very last piece
Now follow the bright glow
The river is dead with me

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The small ball you see is actually heavier than you might think, as it is made of metal. After ran through a CT scan, scientists found patterns of labyrinths within, going in every direction. If you imagine the brain as filled with tiny, tiny nerve threads, here you can instead imagine microscopic hallways. Inside, tiny grains of stone were found, scattered across the labyrinth-like interior. This creature functioned rhythmically, using sound vibrations and reception as both communication and internal functions. The little balls would hammer into the halls of the labyrinth brain, these would then translate into a signal for the next ball to react, and so on. This system functioned throughout its entire body, so that if you ever were to come close to this creature, you would hear it as a loud, complex sequence of drumming rocks.

Orchestra

Tremor in a soft crescendo
Magma strings a thrum
With basalt, moulded bones
I rap, I twist, I strum

Her back thrown in arch
Spitting tongues command
Boulder to cobble, pebble to dust
Banging the crusted drum

Heavy the rumble grows
Coming in, coming out
Many rows of lifted hills
Clutter, shout, and sprout

Molten fluid of the spine
Rolling clouds of heat
Splash to a cymbal crash
With a patterned beat

The orchestra, full tutti
Rumble trapped in loop
Melting all my will
To a rocking soup

Shadowed talons rise
To sink the ashed sky
Heavy curtains drawn
To bid my final chime

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This here is a nerve, but also a stem. It belonged to a variant of the creature where it took on the form of a gelatinous flower. The stem consists of a form of lichen, organized by the creature itself. The bell was described to have looked similar to a jellyfish, probably made of a similar substance. However, if picked it will lose its gelatinous structure, leaving only the stem. It was found by the edge of the water by a young woman who randomly swam into its cave. She described the flower as the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, and was tempted to take a bite. This later caused her to experience an auditory hallucination, and with the same voice that she had sung to the flower in praise of its beauty, a song was now sung to her. The flower seems to have made its own mythology of the sea, sun, and moon, as it recognized the latter as a bringer of food, meaning what came with the tide of the sea. This meal it believed was shared with the sun. It seems to have understood its own death as an event of the sun devouring the moon, while it itself was devoured.

Spell

Sphere of glowing ice
Gasping all of sea
We both share this meal
The two of you and me

Silken, blue seal
Standing on the hill
Jeweled water drops
Her voice brings a thrill

As my coat slips
Gliding through her harp
Left in the palm
Eyes pierce sharp

She calls me beautiful
Special and rare
Sparking my nerves
A spell sung so clear

Jelly balls of blue
Sucking in black
Pink chasm open
Rows of pearly white

Spinning disc of fire
Hungry as can be
A black hole open
devouring him and me

With the group presentation Flower at CHART Art Fair, shown with Nevven Gallery (Gothenburg), I present four new works alongside sculptures by Emelie Sandström and Zsófia Kresztes.

I have recently been quite curious about the connection between spiritual experiences and our biology, in particular what is happening in the brain when a person is experiencing a spiritual vision or enter a transcendental state. As we now understand through science, the brain uses a network of neurons to communicate between different parts of the brain, which again communicate with the different parts of the rest of the body. Chemical substances are released to cause certain reactions and emotions, signalled commands are sent to the different body parts causing them to move and act. It is a beautifully complex symphony of tiny little cells organising themselves to become; you.

The brain exhibits different wave frequencies, each associated with characteristic states such as deep sleep, relaxation, or heightened alertness. Brain waves are basically a measurement of the electric frequency the brain is operating at. The higher the frequency, the higher the activity level the brain is operating with. If you look at this chart of brain waves, you can see some of the states that we have observed the body to be in when the brain operates at certain frequencies. There are closer intervals between the waves, meaning it is more rapid, fast (see the zig-zag pattern in Gamma waves) while the lower frequencies show us longer intervals, making it slower. (See the smoother hills of Delta)

What I found interesting is the common description of spiritual experiences as transcendental. When I have felt spiritually connected, it feels as if my brain is working at a higher speed of connection and thought. It almost reminds me of a high-pitched, beautiful voice singing “Aaaaaaaah”. However, I can also be spiritually connected in a calm state, but I do not associate this with the feeling of transcending, more groundedness. One thing that I do feel regardless, is a sense of truth, which I would like to suggest might actually be a feeling of meaning, connectedness. Resonance.

So, for this exhibition, I wanted to work with the concept of characters experiencing spiritual visions, receiving deep and complex knowledge. For the research on this I have been looking at Hildegard Von Bingen, a nun and composer from Germany who lived during the middle ages. She recorded vivid visions with symbolic elements, which she interpreted through a Christian lens. Some of these were illustrated in manuscripts, often referred to as illuminations. The one that struck my mind is the first, where she describes an iron-colored mountain as well as “living sparks.” I will get into this a bit later why this in particular struck me. Here is the description of her vision:

I saw a great mountain the color of iron, and enthroned on it One of such great glory that it blinded my sight. On each side of him there extended a soft shadow, like a wing of wondrous breadth and length. Before him, at the foot of the mountain, stood an image full of eyes on all sides, in which, because of those eyes, I could discern no human form. In front of this image stood another, a child wearing a tunic of subdued color but white shoes, upon whose head such glory descended from the One enthroned upon that mountain that I could not look at its face. But from the One who sat enthroned upon that mountain many living sparks sprang forth, which flew very sweetly around the images. Also, I perceived in this mountain many little windows, in which appeared human heads, some of subdued colors and some white.

What I find interesting is that this vision is in itself not obvious to be a Christian one. It is interpreted by her to be, because this was her grounded understanding of the world. I am not saying this in disrespect to her beliefs, but I am curious about the limits of our perception and understanding. We receive information with our senses and interpret it with our reason. We cannot do anything else but compose meaning from our experiences, and this meaning is shaped by who we are.

According to science, earth was formed from dust and gas. Everything with mass exerts gravity, a force pulling matter toward a center of mass. This dust and gas gravitated and merged. Because gravitation is centered, the mass formed into a sphere. The early Earth remained molten for millions of years before cooling to form a solid crust. In science, there are different theories about how life formed, some have the evidence to be proven, some are still discussed. There is a theory that before the earth had an oxygen-rich atmosphere, its surface was exposed to intense radiation from space, which may have helped spark the formation of life. Learning about this led me to imagine that there is radiation in the form of signals sent to earth, and that recipients of these signals are caused to experience visions. So, in my two large paintings you see a character experiencing a vision, each painting is connected to a smaller work referring to the two planets these signals are coming from. One is the planet Venus, the other is the planet Jupiter.

Hand of Venus (2025), watercolor on paper, picture courtesy of Nevven

Hand of Venus depicts a frozen moment of lightning across a landscape of mountains with yellow skies. The atmosphere of Venus is full of sulphuric acid, which is used to create battery acid, causing the color yellow. It is believed that lightning possibly occurs within the sulphuric clouds. Like I mentioned earlier, the brain operates on electricity, it is the transmission of these signals that combine to our thoughts. It is here that I in a sci-fictional way imagine the lightning being a form of a sentient being, but one without a body of mass. Perhaps the gas clouds are its body and the lightning are a sequence of thoughts, or perhaps it has none and merely exists for a glimpse of a second. This is where I come back to Hildegard Von Bingen, and a funny little coincidence. I read her first vision after coming up with this idea. She describes an iron-colored mountain, and ochre is the color of iron, which can range from yellow to rust-red. When buying a tube of “ochre” paint, you usually get an earthy yellow. She also describes sparks of light across the sky. You can imagine my heart raced a beat.

The Conduit (2025), watercolor on paper, picture courtesy of Nevven

In The Conduit we see a woman with a distant gaze, her hands resting on her thighs, each holding a chestnut. One is sprouted in full bloom, the other dead covered in a white, veiny, fungus. Life breathes in, death breathes out. The circulatory system functions with arteries carrying oxygenated blood away from the heart to the body, while veins carry deoxygenated blood back to the heart to be re-oxygenated. The title refers to her as a conduit for energy, traveling through her by touch. She receives this signal through physical sense.

Eye of Jupiter (2025), watercolor on paper, picture courtesy of Nevven

Eye of Jupiter refers to a particular gas storm on Jupiter that forms to a red spot mimicking the look of an eye. We don’t know exactly how old it is, but it has been observed for at least 350 years. In the painting we see a small orange circle, as if light peeking through a hole, on the surface of what appears to be a greenish wood.

The Composer (2025), watercolor on paper, picture courtesy of Nevven

The previous work links to the painting The Composer, which depicts a woman sitting on a bed, staring into the back-end of a pencil. Out blooms a flowery eye like a wrung-out kaleidoscope, emitting a signal depicted as a white light hitting her retina. The retina is at the back of the eye, a light-sensitive tissue which receives light and transforms it to electrical signals sent to the brain. On the frame of the bed we see repeated ornaments of flowers shaped to their squared frames. I connect these shapes to the study of cymatics, a term coined in the 20th century to describe the study of how sound vibrations can be made visible. The origins of this field go back to the work of Ernst Chladni (1756–1827), a German physicist and musician. In the late 18th century, Chladni famously spread fine particles such as sand on metal plates and set them vibrating, often by drawing a violin bow along the edge. As the plate vibrates at certain frequencies, the particles gather into distinct patterns. We understand this phenomenon by categorizing the vibrating and non-vibrating areas as antinodes and nodes. The antinodes are where the plate vibrates most intensely, while the nodes are calm regions where particles settle. As the frequency increases, the distribution of nodes becomes more complex, forming intricate geometric shapes. Today these patterns are known as Chladni figures, and the plates used to demonstrate them are called Chladni plates in his honor. These patterns can range from simplistic to complex, depending on the frequency. What type of metal is used, as well as density, thickness, size and shape will have an effect on the results acquired. If you have a circular shape you get a different set of patterns than if you use a square one, while patterns from irregularly shaped plates tend to be more organic, resembling ripples on the ocean surface.

An example of patterns made with a Chladni plate.

My first personal meeting with this phenomenon physically, was when I was at an event in a venue named Boksen in Oslo. The bathroom stalls had a puddle of water in the clogged drain, shaped to a circle. The heavy bass of the music vibrated the water surface, causing this beautiful, dancing pattern.

What is so striking about these patterns is that they seem sort of recognizable while still abstract. At times they look like grids, other times a flower. One thing is certain, they are mesmerizing. Dr. Hans Jenny (1904-1972) wrote about and studied Cymatics with a theory of resonance between these patterns and structures in nature, linking it to a better understanding of the structure of the universe. I had the same feeling when I first discovered them, like there is a deeper knowledge to be understood about how things grow, how things take shape. There is something in common behind all the immense and infinite variation. If anything, it is a great illustration of how certain variables affect the result, which can be metaphorically said about humans as well. We have certain features in common, but our experiences together with our genetics, form us, which again form our perception and focus of interest. We are living Chladni plates, we are composers.