These Magnetic Magnitudes | Cecilia Danell at Solstice Arts Centre

Event Details

Exhibition continues 14 June – 16 August 2025.

These Magnetic Magnitudes
Cecilia Danell
Curated by Brenda McParland

These Magnetic Magnitudes is a solo exhibition of new and recent paintings, textiles, ceramics and film by Cecilia Danell, curated by Brenda McParland. The exhibition explores the overarching theme of contemporary landscapes and our unfulfilled yearning for that which is primal and unspoilt, filtered through the lens of psychogeography, Science Fiction and the sublime. In a practice which is rooted in materiality and process, the starting point for Danell’s work is a first-hand engagement with the landscape of the area in Sweden where she grew up. Bodily memories of moving through the places she depicts are mirrored in the physical endeavour of painting on a large scale, which creates its own spatial choreography. The landscapes Danell depicts are real places that she has encountered and photographed. However rather than offering a documentary view of these places, she uses fiction and the imaginary to speak about present and possible futures through a Science Fiction reading of the landscape. A new series of large paintings considers ideas around spectatorship and participation, inspired by the large nature dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. We are presented with scenes that invite the viewer to step into them, yet the 2D surfaces of her paintings prevent us. Danell continuously points back to this push and pull between realism, abstraction and the materiality of paint itself. She uses oil and acrylic on canvas in vivid shades of greens, purples and pinks, using acrylic washes and layers beneath the oil paint, and acrylic for drips because of its viscosity and velocity.

Danell is predominantly a painter, but also makes textile tapestries, ceramic and fabric sculptures and occasionally films. Danell recalls idyllic summer childhood memories of the Swedish countryside in her oversized fabric sculpture Lupin, 2024 which is both beautiful and treacherous as lupins are listed as an invasive species in Sweden, that should be eradicated when found in the wild. A series of ceramic sculptures in pastel shades and three large colourful appliqúe tapestries memorialise snow for future generations by playing with its properties of hiding and abstracting the underlying shapes. Echoing the snowy vistas in The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin, these are imaginary “ur-forms” that touch upon the primeval, merging colourful playfulness with a solemn reminder of climate change and the state of our planet. In the same room, the film Snow Day, 2025 (15 mins) camera/editing by Danell; soundtrack by Keith Wallace/Loner Deluxe captures a first-person view of the artist moving through the snowy woods in Sweden which is both immersive and atmospheric.

A hardback catalogue with texts by Aidan Dunne and Charity Coleman will be published by Solstice Arts Centre and Kevin Kavanagh in autumn 2025.

The gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday 11am – 4pm.