Malin Molin by Lina Aastrup

Malin Molin explores human desire by reframing our consumption of images as a metabolic system of sustenance and pleasure. Her figurative paintings, in which she uses explorations of organic shapes and textures to trigger somatic reactions to our contemporary feasting on images, often straddle the line between beauty and repulsion.

LA — Tell us about your artistic practice.

MM — It seems to me that we’re living in a time of conflicting imperatives: “Enjoy life! Live like an ascetic! Eat! Don’t eat!” Invasive, inconsistent messages that cause a kind of neurotic state. My painting is a reaction to the bulimic consumption of images that dominates our times. My reference materials are mainly sourced from social media, and I work in a figurative tradition in which painting seeks to communicate directly with the body. Lust, desire, cravings, disgust, moral decay, and extravagance are all subjects that I want to address in my painting. However, I don’t want to moralize; my artistic process is fuelled rather by a fascination with beauty and a love of painting itself.

LA — The body is an important subject in your works, would you mind elaborating on that?

MM — I believe that we have been socialised into adopting a pornographic mode of vision–an artificial craving that demands constant satisfaction. As a result, we end up being force-fed with visual impressions. My painting process is like a metabolic system, in which I can allow the body to fully process images that might otherwise just have flickered past. My attempts to address the body add a physical dimension to the digital image.

LA — What made you choose food as your subject?

MM — In my previous practice, I painted a lot of portraits, but I soon discovered that the viewers were mainly preoccupied with the identity of whoever I had depicted. What was the individual’s skin tone, gender, and so on–and that wasn’t quite what I was going for! So, I’ve tried to find a more allegorical idiom. Although our bodies may look different, the workings of our physical reactions are the same. We all react instinctively to images we see, and that’s the vulnerability I want to get at through my paintings.

LA — Could you tell us more about the specific pieces you’re showing at CFHILL?

MM — In these works, I have combined images that aren’t necessarily related to one another in order to produce a sense of ambivalence, emphasise the absurd, and exaggerate the beauty. I want to evoke conflicting emotions. I want to trigger desire and disgust alike. It matters more to me how something feels than what the picture actually depicts.

LA — What is in your immediate future?

MM — I’m going to have my first international exhibition in Kassel in 2022, which feels very exciting. During my time as a student, I’ve developed an idiom that I can use to address specific subjects that I find particularly important and interesting. The fact that I’ve been given an opportunity to continue this conversation outside of the school environment confirms, in a way, that I am onto something.

Malin Molin (b. 1989) earned her MFA from the Royal Institute of Art in 2021, and previously studied at the Chelsea College of Art. She works in Stockholm.