Curated Choice #10: Collective Illusions
by Birgit Lyngbye Pedersen
For the tenth edition of Curated Choice, Birgit Lyngbye Pedersen curates artworks that engage with her theme of collective illusions and the subtle forces that inform perceived consensus.
Curated Choice #10:
Collective Illusions
by Birgit Lyngbye Pedersen
For the tenth edition of Curated Choice, Birgit Lyngbye Pedersen curates artworks that engage with her theme of collective illusions and the subtle forces that inform perceived consensus.
Titled Collective Illusions, this edition considers how assumptions, perceived norms, and unspoken expectations shape our understanding of the world around us. Drawing on ideas presented by Todd Rose, Birgit Lyngbye Pedersen reflects on how easily we can mistake perceived consensus for genuine agreement – and how these misreadings influence both public narratives and private behaviour.
Through submissions from ENTER’s participating galleries, the selection brings together works that touch on perception, conformity, digital distortion, and the pressures that guide collective behaviour. In this context, Collective Illusions becomes a framework for looking at the subtle forces that colour what we believe others think, and the distance that can exist between appearance and reality.
Birgit Lyngbye Pedersen by Birgitta Wolfgang Bjørndalen
BIRGIT LYNGBYE PEDERSEN
Birgit Lyngbye Pedersen works across design, art, music, craft, and architecture. She is the founder of Brodie Sessions – analogue 16mm live music sessions filmed in front of an audience at selected locations and later released online. Today, Brodie Sessions is an international family-run initiative built on uncompromising quality and a wish to create meaningful cultural encounters.
Together with her husband, she also founded Galleri Sonja in Allinge on Bornholm – a gallery, café, and shop designed by Norm Architects, dedicated to exceptional craft from Bornholm and Japan.
Birgit holds a degree in pedagogy and textiles and spent many years teaching textile arts before becoming a design historian. She has contributed to several publications on design and business history, and since gifting Finn Juhl’s house to Ordrupgaard in 2008, she has continued to work with the story of the renowned furniture architect.
Her relationship with art and architecture began early. Her grandfather introduced her to the idea that aesthetics could shape not only objects but entire workplaces, while her mother cultivated a home defined by an appreciation for colour, design, and form. From childhood onward, art, architecture, and craftsmanship have been constant presences – making it almost inevitable that they would become central to both her professional life and personal pursuits.
Birgit Lyngbye Pedersen by Birgitta Wolfgang Bjørndalen
BIRGIT LYNGBYE PEDERSEN
Birgit Lyngbye Pedersen works across design, art, music, craft, and architecture. She is the founder of Brodie Sessions – analogue 16mm live music sessions filmed in front of an audience at selected locations and later released online. Today, Brodie Sessions is an international family-run initiative built on uncompromising quality and a wish to create meaningful cultural encounters.
Together with her husband, she also founded Galleri Sonja in Allinge on Bornholm – a gallery, café, and shop designed by Norm Architects, dedicated to exceptional craft from Bornholm and Japan.
Birgit holds a degree in pedagogy and textiles and spent many years teaching textile arts before becoming a design historian. She has contributed to several publications on design and business history, and since gifting Finn Juhl’s house to Ordrupgaard in 2008, she has continued to work with the story of the renowned furniture architect.
Her relationship with art and architecture began early. Her grandfather introduced her to the idea that aesthetics could shape not only objects but entire workplaces, while her mother cultivated a home defined by an appreciation for colour, design, and form. From childhood onward, art, architecture, and craftsmanship have been constant presences – making it almost inevitable that they would become central to both her professional life and personal pursuits.
For full list of works including prices, please find the Curated Choice #10 here
For full list of works including prices, please find the Curated Choice #10 here
James Rielly
Mask and face, 2023
Oil paint on linen
76 x 61 cm
James Rielly’s paintings occupy a strange, beguiling territory between innocence and disquiet. His style is built from simplified forms that conform children or androgynous characters in gently surreal scenarios; however, when we look closely, we appreciate that behind the first layer of naiveté lies a sense of the uncanny, a deeper emotional complexity. Rielly’s work speaks to the unsettling feeling that arises when disconformity is present and to the quiet discomfort of the spiral of silence when acquiescing to the norm. This duality, between the naive and the uncanny, gives his work a quietly haunting power, one that lingers in the mind and prompts a critical reconsideration of what we assume to be true.
Photos courtesy of Alzueta Gallery
Mathias Malling Mortensen
Untitled, 2025
Oil on paper-cut
Waxed solid oak frame with UltraVue glass
Framed: 140 x 165 cm | Unframed: 125 x 150 cm
(MMM 209)
Mathias Malling Mortensen’s artistic language centers around space and the interplay between shapes and forms. He explores the tension between light, delicate shapes and complex compositions, examining how they interact with their surroundings. Mortensen’s work reveals an intuitive, minimalist approach, showing careful attention to detail. His art reflects a deep fascination with urban architectural elements and botanical forms, often highlighting aesthetic qualities that might otherwise go unnoticed. Through his works, he invites viewers to experience the subtle connections between ornamental details and layered compositions.
Photo courtesy of BRICKS and the artist
Michael Würtz Overbeck
The Multifaceted Possibilities Of All Things, 2022
Graphite on paper in handmade frame with UV-glass
70 x 51 cm
Unique work
Photo courtesy of Formation Gallery
Íñigo Navarro
Today we dream just the same, 2024
Oil on canvas
180 x 160 cm
In Íñigo Navarro’s tumultuous gatherings, human bodies drift like sparks in a restless storm. Faces blur into murmurs, gestures flare and vanish, and each figure becomes both witness and wave of human behaviour. His art listens to the pulse beneath the crowd; where desire, fear, and fleeting grace weave a fragile constellation of our shared, trembling humanity. Amid the swirl, he captures the quiet truth hidden in the noise, tracing how we seek connection even as we dissolve into the tide, forever circling longing.
Katia Klose
#5 from the series inversive (golden mountain), 2024
Iceland
Fine art Inkjet Print
30 x 45 cm, framed
At the core of Katia Klose’s photographic practice lies an exploration of reality that foregrounds its sensual and poetic dimensions. The documentary aspect of her work is interwoven with an inquiry into the concealed interconnections of human existence in dialogue with the environment and the natural world. In her constructed photographic scenes, notions of the primordial are placed in contrast to the contradictions of contemporary modes of living.
The series represents an attempt to translate her spatial experience into a kind of “negative” form inscribed within body and soul. Central to this process are the existential sensations elicited by an overwhelming environment—snow, cold, storms, darkness, solitude, fear, silence, and isola- tion—manifesting as a pervasive sense of an impending threat.
Jacob Rantzau
Mari Curi (Sketch), 2025
Oil on Paper
137 x 105 cm (Framed)
Jacob Rantzau stages a lone figure rowing through a burning landscape – a scene caught between control and collapse. The flames rise behind the boat like an emotional afterimage, blurring the line between an external threat and an inner turmoil. The water, reeds, and heavy brushstrokes create an atmos- phere of movement without direction, urgency without clarity. The work speaks to the theme of collective Illusions through its portrayal of how individuals often push forward guided by assumptions about what is expected of them, navigat- ing crises that may be real, perceived, or inherited. The figure rows as if com- pelled by an invisible mandate, embodying the pressure to “keep going” even when the path is uncertain or burning behind you.
Photo courtesy of Galleri Franz Pedersen
Maria Rubinke
Life is but a walking shadow, 2023
Bronze
160 x 160 cm
Life is but a Walking Shadow unfolds as a monumental relief where charred, root-like structures twist into an architectural void. A chamber that seems both protective and suffocating. Its central structure could resemble a shelter or sanctuary, yet its material language suggests something far less stable. The promise of safety becomes an illusion constructed from brittle, fractured layers – much like the cultural and psychological narratives we cling to in order to feel grounded. The creeping, skeletal roots hint at forces beneath the surface that shape us without our awareness, echoing the hidden pressures and unspoken agreements society relies on. Here, the “walking shadow” becomes a metaphor for the self moving through a world built on assumptions – a figure navigating an architecture formed as much by collective imagination as by material reality.
Photo courtesy of Galleri Franz Pedersen
Martine Myrup
Arrangement, 2025
Vintage table cloth, modified vase, felt, steel, cardboard, wire and found ribbon
92h x 56w x 27d cm
Martine Myrup is an artist based in Denmark, working primarily within sculpture. Myrup’s primary interest is sculpture as a substitute or surrogate, as a votive offering, but also a desire to evoke and give physical form to what has been lost. Working exclusively with materials and objects that have already served their original purpose, she highlights how objects and materials already have immeasurable amounts of stories contained within them. And by recontextualizing them, she is able to tell her own.
Photo courtesy of Galleri Maria Friis
Jonas Burgert
Duldung, 2022
Oil on canvas
103 x 84 x 4,5 cm (Framed)
Courtesy of Hans Alf Gallery
Martin Liebscher
Harpa, 2023
Fine Art Pigment Print on Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Gloss
Mounted on Alu Dibond Plexiglass
155 x 350 cm
Edition of 5 + 2 AP
Ruhe bitte!, or Quiet please! in English, is commonly heard in theaters and libraries. These places call for quiet, well-behaved, and considerate behavior. And these instructions seem well deserved, when observing the char- acters of German artist Martin Liebscher.
Climbing along the bookshelves and crawling on the balconies of well-known theaters and concert halls, such as Harpa in Reykjavik or The Opera House in Copenhagen, everyone seems out of control in these architectural landmarks. Liebscher produces his large-scale works by processing digital photographs, which he has taken on himself with the help of an assistant. The characters are therefore not digitally manipulated, but real images of a real person in action, and his impressive photographic works are often based on thousands of individual photographs.
Photo courtesy of Martin Asbæk Gallery
Installation photo by David Stjernholm
Torbjørn Rødland
On the Porch, 2008-2018
Chromogenic print, Kodak Endura paper
60 x 76 cm (23,62 x 29,92 in)
Edition #1/3, 1AP (#1/3)
(TRØ18004)
Torbjørn Rødland’s photographs are produced through film-based cameras and chemical processing. His self-aware and often uncanny photographs, films, and books are saturated with symbolism, lyricism, and eroticism. They take on existing visual forms and genres from still lives to portraits to landscapes, but without the research tone of first-wave conceptual art or the ironic commentary of the subsequent Pictures Generation.
In his work, Rødland attempts to seize and integrate truth, rather than deconstruct it, reflecting his inclination to delve into the problematic aspects of contemporary photography and the history of art. He probes popular visual languages in search of both spiritual and perverse qualities, aiming to prolong our engagement with both still and moving images. His works do not offer quick readings; instead, they invite us to explore the layered nature of each image, encouraging personal interpretations based on our cultural, political, and personal contexts.
Photo courtesy of NILS STÆRK
Yvonne Mak
Imprint Seal Brown
100% Recycled PET chiffon
Edition of 3
300 x 330 x 15 cm
Yvonne Mak’s IMPRINT installation series features printed textiles that mimic sun- bleached curtains, shaped by years of sunlight exposure. Faded patterns appear on the fabric, creating the illusion of windows where there are none. This subtle trick of the mind, suggesting more daylight and openness, can enhance feelings of wellbeing and happiness indoors.
Photo courtesy of Rademakers Gallery
Andrea Scholze
Finn veien tilbake til det du har, 2024
Glazed ceramic
95 x 90 x 83 cm
Unique
Photo courtesy of QB Gallery & Tor Simen Ulstein
Sophie de Vos
Layers of Perception, 2024
ed. 1/2, framed with museum glass
120 x 90 cm
In Layers of Perception, de Vos uses glass as both a physical and conceptual filter. The layered reflections distort the subject just enough to make the viewer question what is actual and what is assumed. This connects directly to the idea of Collective Illusions: we rarely see the world unmediated. Perception is shaped by expectations, memories, and the subtle influence of what we believe others see as well. The work reveals how easily clarity becomes fragmented, and how quickly a distorted view can feel true simply because it appears to be shared.
Aljoscha
Neural Dust and Celestial Compassion (01), 2025
Acrylic glass, pigmented
Paper Dimensions:
112 x 180 x 103 cm
(C1839)
Lulama Wolf
Conversations II, 2025
Acrylic and sand on canvas
30 x 40 cm
At the intersection of Neo-Expressionism and Modern African Art, Wolf explores the pre-colonial African experience through a contemporary lens. Her process involves smearing, scraping, and employing deep pigment techniques inspired by vernacular architecture. These techniques often incorporate patterns traditionally created by women to decorate traditional African homes.
History and the proof of life are the core concepts in her work. Where there has rarely prior been reference of life in black spirituality, she counters that narrative by creating two dimensional paintings to embody the simplicity and deep spiritual power of the native eye. Her motivation is both tender and protective of her imaginary world, and her symbolic view of how her world looks into an alternate universe. She is set on creating both a photographic and graphic experience, that morphs and shapeshifts into a higher dimensional plane.
Julia Hochbaum
Match Ball, 2025
Oil on canvas, unique
40 x 52 cm
With Match Ball, Julia Hochbaum pulls us into a world where everyday objects slip effortlessly into disguise. At first glance, the painting could belong to an Old Master’s cabinet: a silver bowl, a linen cloth, a knife, a perfectly lit arrangement. But the illusion collapses quickly: these are not lemons but tennis balls, rendered with such tactile precision that they adopt the role of fruit with unsettling ease. A towel folds itself into the silhouette of a tennis skirt; a split-open ball performs the part of something edible. Hochbaum isn’t merely playing with visual trickery, she is staging a commentary on how readily we accept constructed realities when they appear familiar enough.
Image courtesy of Uhlig Gallery
SABO
It Never Sleeps, 2025
Ceramic
Height: 28 cm | Diameter: 16 cm
We now live in an age where silence no longer exists. Thoughts, expectations, and invisible gazes follow us like shadows.
SABO’s latest series It Never Sleeps addresses the unending presence of anxiety, the weight of perception, and the echoes of unheard sounds. The series explores a world where the mind can never truly rest, weighed down by the constant awareness of being watched, judged, and defined by others.
Caro Jost
YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE A GENIUS
New York, Munich, 2001+2019
Epoxy, acrylic, print on canvas
105 x 70 x 4 cm
Jost’s so called Public Paintings are based on flyers offering courses that promised solutions for personal, social challenges and self-optimization. Caro Jost collected these original templates in New York in 2001 and uses them to explore particular aspects of public life, society, and human interaction.
Caro Jost’s focus lies on themes of self-optimization and interpersonal conduct within a society increasingly divided by the pursuit of success and happiness – an ever-relevant question of how the individual positions themselves within the larger social whole. In her Public Paintimg she highlights certain words or phrases while rendering others illegible. Through painterly intervention, the texts become critically ironic analyses.
Image courtesy of Walter Storms Galerie
Caro Jost
EVERYONE CAN BE A STAR
New York, Munich, 2001+2019
Epoxy, acrylic, print on canvas
105 x 70 x 4 cm
Jost’s so called Public Paintings are based on flyers offering courses that promised solutions for personal, social challenges and self-optimization. Caro Jost collected these original templates in New York in 2001 and uses them to explore particular aspects of public life, society, and human interaction.
Caro Jost’s focus lies on themes of self-optimization and interpersonal conduct within a society increasingly divided by the pursuit of success and happiness – an ever-relevant question of how the individual positions themselves within the larger social whole. In her Public Paintimg she highlights certain words or phrases while rendering others illegible. Through painterly intervention, the texts become critically ironic analyses.
Image courtesy of Walter Storms Galerie
