LEJBACH & BLENDSTRUP: Oaks

January 9 – April 24, 2016

The special exhibition and project OAK EXPEDITIONS has now reached its presentation in Jutland. The exhibition and the book is a result of a fruitful co-operation between writer Jens Blendstrup and visual artist Ole Lejbach. From a first glance the method seem to be bare registration and also a large number of old oaks from around the country have been included, but first and foremost this project demonstrate the power of the drawing and how only fantasy limit what poets – and thereby the rest of us – can achieve by reflecting on history and the general state of things.

Painter Ole Lejbach and author Jens Blendstrup have spent four years travelling all over Denmark in order to map Danish oak trees and listen to their stories. Ole Lejbach has used his pencil to represent and portray each individual tree; Jens Blendstrup has put his ear to the bark and written new stories. And then he created his own narrative. This is first time in Denmark that the oak tree seriously has been explored by contemporary artists in a cross medial project like this cooperation between Ole Lejbach and Jens Blendstrup around Oak Expeditions, which also have threads to other fields of science.

With the measure of 140 x 120 cm’s the more than 50 pencil drawings by Ole Lejbach are large for this kind of expression. It seems a necessity with this large scale to cope with the whole volume these old trees and the traces of lived life which put its marks on them. Lejbach’s insisting to use the pencil, on drawing in black/white relates his works with the great tradition for the art of drawing since the renaissance. As a parallel to the visual work one finds the new written texts by Jens Blendstrup, calling our fantasy alive and presenting a counter-position to the physical drawing. 
Everyone knows the oak. Or do we? The exhibition OAK EXPEDITIONS appeals to the curiosity of all ages, interested in art, nature and literature. To a very high extent this is a cross medial project, which will find a broad audience around the country. The old oaks in Denmark are part of our cultural heritage.  The oak is folklore. No other tree was through the centuries as connected with myths and stories as the oak. In addition it becomes older than most other trees, and this calls for respect. In the book (printed in Danish text) ”Ege-ekspeditioner” one also find elements of knowledge from cultural history, folklore, biology about the oak. Finally GPS-coordinates encourage audiences to go out there on expeditions themselves. The project is supported by Nordea-fonden.