Amalia Bille | Spegelbotten
Amalia Bille's work is characterized by its distinctive expression and contemplative qualities. With a Bachelor's degree in Textile Art and a Master's degree in Ceramics, Amalia Bille is working in a wide range of materials and techniques – painting, textile, ceramics, and glass – and often in elaborate and dramatized installations.
The human portrait has always been crucial, and she has carried out several performances where she draws rapid portraits of the visitors. Her fascination for the gaze, the human encounter and how identities shape in our own and others' eyes are thus recurrent subjects in Bille's practice. Spegelbotten (a made-up concept, combining the Swedish words for 'mirror' and 'bottom'/'bed' as in 'seabed' or 'riverbed') is her second solo exhibition in the gallery and features a series of stoneware sculptures where the gaze remains a key element.
Amalia Bille's world is populated by faces and ball-shaped human heads, sometimes reduced to faceless spheres. Her primary interest is to narrate, rather than to portray or depict in a traditional sense. The work process can be thought of as a mutual give-and-take, a struggle guided by Bille's interest in and sensitivity to the ceramic material. The surfaces are clearly marked by the work of the hands, and behind the thin layers of glaze, you'll find cracks and patches of clay as a proof of human touch and care.
"My work revolves around the human being and the inner landscapes, the gaze and what is within it. My working method is direct and spontaneous, and the sculptures emerge when the hand interacts with the material. My ambition is that you should sense their presence in a room, just like a container." – Amalia Bille
Amalia Bille lives and works in Gothenburg. She is educated at HDK with a Bachelor's degree in Textile Art (2002-2006) and a Master's degree in Ceramics (2015-2017). Bille presented her previous solo exhibition, entitled Bright Eyes Night, at Berg Gallery in 2018, and has since then exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions at Göteborgs Konsthall (2018), Mölndals Stadsmuseum/GIBCA Extended (2019), Galleri Thomassen, Gothenburg (2019), Alma Löv Museum of Unexp. Art (2020), The Glass Factory, Boda (2020) and Borås Konstmuseum (2022), among others. Her work is represented in the collections of the Public Art Agency Sweden, Stockholm City Council, Västra Götalandsregionen, and Borås Konstmuseum, to name a few.
