Consultation 

Curator: Erik Thor Sandberg's "Consultation" is quite striking, wouldn’t you agree? Editor: Absolutely. It immediately evokes a sense of vulnerability, that figure swathed in bandages and perched precariously on what looks like a vintage suitcase. There is a dreamlike or nightmarish quality about it. Curator: Sandberg’s material choices definitely play a role here. We are looking at an oil on canvas; the way he manipulates the paint contributes significantly to this unsettling feeling. You see a classical style used, for example, in modeling the figure’s flesh tones, but the darkness of the background is almost neo-expressionist. Editor: I’m intrigued by how this intersects with societal expectations around femininity and the female body. She's nude, seemingly exposed, yet obscured. The bandages and bound nature of the neck could signify imposed constraints or even societal silencing, wouldn't you say? And then the dried, dying flowers—is it symbolic of lost potential? The oil paint feels like an appropriate, time-worn medium to ask the question of women's bodies across eras. Curator: Definitely. And that suitcase is an interesting element of artifice to consider from a production standpoint. Is it mass produced, antique, reclaimed, or constructed? It seems to play as both a platform and a burden – or baggage. Sandberg asks how an object supports, and potentially contains, its subjects. Editor: I see the material conditions adding weight to these broader discussions. The historical positioning of the nude within art is, traditionally, loaded with implications about objectification and power dynamics. Sandberg seems to play with, and perhaps critique, that history. He presents someone with these bandages or blockades, as though undergoing self-examination while simultaneously subject to the gaze of the other. Curator: It leaves one thinking about the processes we undertake to create art and to what and whom we are beholden in their making. The canvas and oils can obscure as much as they illuminate. Editor: A deeply compelling intersection of personal struggle and social critique, expertly rendered in oil. It demands a questioning of the roles and expectations thrust upon individuals and societies throughout history.