For Swedish artist Nina Canell the nature of process is the material of her practice. Grounded as much in the chance encounter as in close study, her work is characterised by a syntax of relations and transfers, whereby material forms and immaterial forces are placed in proximity, facilitating dynamic relations to emerge and sculpture as an agency to take form.

The negotiation and displacement of energy has been an integral preoccupation in her work since the very beginning. Thinking beyond the tangibility of sculpture, she sees it not only as something that is grounded in material and objects, but more as a host that might act as a conduit for external events.

For Canell, sculpture is a condition; one that is highly sensitive to spatio-temporal variables. The environment in which her sculptures are placed determines the temperature, atmosphere and transformation of objects – just as they in turn shape what is around them.

Nina Canell (1979, Växjö, Sweden) lives and works in Berlin.
Her solo exhibitions include Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden (2019); S.M.A.K (Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst), Ghent (2018); Kunstmuseum St. Gallen (2018); The Artist’s Institute, New York (2017); Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2017); Arko Art Center, Seoul (2016); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2014); Camden Arts Centre, London (2014); Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2012), and Fridericianum, Kassel (2011).
Her group shows include the Venice, Sydney, Lyon, Gwangju, and Liverpool biennials; exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam; the ICA, London; Guggenheim, Bilbao, and Manifesta 7, Trentino – South Tyrol.