I entered into Peter Callesen's world through his performance piece Palace of Dreams, which consisted of a white castle floating in the middle of a lake, to which the viewer would be rowed out to (by Callesen), left alone in the castle for half an hours, then picked up and rowed back to shore. The piece is very representative of Callesen's work, which in its playful nature examines greater concepts, existing simultaneously in reality and a strange dream-like state.
A post could be written for each of the mediums Callesen works in, which is not to say that his work is not cohesive, because it certainly is, rather that his body of work is so large and the attention paid to each section of what he does is such that it seems silly to try and tackle all of Callesen in one shot. Because of this, I will keep it relatively brief and can only plead that you check out his website for a more comprehensive taste.
In subject matter, it is easy to see why I am attracted to Callesen's work, he repeatedly goes back to my three favorite things; birds, skeletons and houses. His work is executed so perfectly that one wonders if he is possibly insane. In particular his papercuts, which are absolutely breathtaking, have such a degree of perfection and minute detail that it seems both obsessive and unreal.
In his artist statements Callesen refers to fairy tales, and the magic and in some ways tragic implications of papercut - something that is reflected in many of his pieces, through delicate images of death and decay. One of his installations (untitled, last image shown here) requires the viewer to "bend down to level of a child" to enter. It is clear that Callesen is playing with connections to childhood, and perhaps childhood interpretations of the world.
Callesen is also a performance, installation, and 2d artist and sculptor.
Callesen's website (lots of images, various writing pieces done on Callesen, artist statements, current exhibitions, etc etc)
images: petercallesen.com
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