Alexander Tovborg | Monotypes

Alexander Tovborg’s recent woodcuts and monotypes focus on the myths surrounding the French saint Joan of Arc.

Joan of Arc, who grew up in France during the Hundred Years’ War, started hearing voices as a young girl. These voices developed into an urgent prophetic revelation for her to save France from the English domination. She was put in charge of an army, which, with the young girl’s fighting spirit, freed the city of Orléans. After unsuccessful attempts to regain more land, Joan of Arc was captured and burned at the stake by the Englishmen, accused of heresy and acting as a man. The Latin expression amor fati [eng. love of fate] describes an individual accepting the events of life imposing on her or him. Everything that happens, good and evil, is understood as destiny. For Alexander Tovborg, Joan of Arc is a clear example of a person fulfilling her destiny by living it fully. In rich color combinations, Tovborg unfolds his very own ornamentation and world of motifs in his woodcuts and monotypes.

Monotypes are unique prints created on a featureless plate. Unlike the woodcut, Tovborg has not left permanent marks on the printing plate but painted directly on its surface. Monotypes cannot be repeated. However, Tovborg continued working with the traces of color left on the plate—the so-called “ghost.” Color traces from the first motif keep adding a flickering, almost magical, blaze to the subsequent images of Joan of Arc in Tovborg’s amor fati series.

Alexander Tovborg, born 1983, lives and works in Copenhagen.