Luki Essender

Luki Essender b. Ilava, Slovakia in 1995 based in Stockholm, Sweden lukessender@gmal.com 072-9761721 Education: 2018 - 2020 Konstfack, Stockholm, SE MFA Fine Art 2014 - 2018 Faculty of Fine Arts, BUT Brno, CZ BcA (Studio of Body Design) Exhibitions: Solo and duo shows: Really Bad Soap, Galleri Konstfack, Stockholm, SE, 2019 The House of SM Collection (with Anita Somrová), Monomach, Brno, CZ, 2017 The Presentation of Love and Beauty (with Anita Somrová), Umakart, Brno, CZ, 2016 You Ladyboy, Galerie Art, Brno, CZ, 2016 Home as a Temple (with Anita Somrová), PRAHA/Fórum pro architekturu a média, Brno, CZ, 2016 Waiting on his knees like a good cock sucker, makemake, Brno, CZ, 2016 Group shows: Konstfack Master of Fine Art, Mint, Stockholm, SE, 2020 A river, a tool, an instep like a half-open book, Konsthall C, Stockholm, SE, 2019 Body Ensemble, Gama Gallery, Istanbul, TR, 2018 Oxygenium mundi, Villa Mysteria, Hradec Králové, CZ, 2016 Nude on nude (makemake open), CZ, 2016 Performances and appearances: Queer spoken word, Södra teatern, Stockholm, SE, 2019 Festival of Naked Forms, Vrané nad Vltavou, CZ, 2018 Public Space CZ, Galerie Jaroslava Frágnera, Praha, CZ, 2017 Performance festival Malamut, Ostrava, CZ, 2015

My artistic practice consists mainly of sculpture, installation, performance and writing. With these mediums I explore the everyday queer experience in the context of the crumbling down economic system; I'm interested in how technology influences relationships and sexuality and our emotional expressions. I create subtile sculptural compositions that draw inspiration from domestic spaces and to some extend fetishise a middle-class white lifestyle. Using hand-written text and applying it to different surfaces and spaces is a reference to the way how queer bodies historically claimed public spaces. They are messages to lovers, peers and oppressors. The materials I choose are relatable and have a very specific relationship to human body. They are often found in our proximity, our most intimate spaces. I mix found objects with wood, paint, wax, plastic or textile to re-create existing scenes in a new speculative universe. At the moment I am working on two texts that both deal with i.e. identity, labour, consumerism, desire, technology and sex. The text poetically describes environments, objects and what they represent, many different perceptions of reality that bring anxiety just like our hyper-personalised touchscreens.

- Essender employs varying media ranging from sculpture and installation to performance, increasingly examining language and writing. -- "Luki Essender’s practice evokes the codes and modes of performance which enable queer spaces to materialise in public, yet he always also tells of the violent discrimination being queer in public is still met with, and the anger and anxieties such abuse instills. Essender employs varying media ranging from sculpture and installation to performance and writing. In using fragile materials and found objects to refer to the body and circuits of exchange between bodies, he echoes the transitional, unstable condition under which queer practices become public – or are barred from doing so. The jury was convinced by the communicative power of Essender’s work, and the courageous manner in which he opens up spaces outside of binary sexuality in works which render the viewer an active accomplice in the narration." (-Kathrin Bentele)