Mathias Malling Mortensen

Mathias Malling Mortensen is a Danish visual artist whose practice bridges the gap between painting, collage, and sculpture. Grounded in a long-term exploration of spatial research, he has developed a signature "cut-out" technique where layered sections of paper or canvas transform flat surfaces into tactile, structural reliefs.
His non-figurative style balances bold, monochromatic color fields with a poetic interplay of light, shadow, and negative space. The resulting work functions almost musically, inviting the viewer to look through the art as much as at it.

In his latest graphic project with Printer’s Proof, Mathias Malling Mortensen created his compositions using paper cutouts. Instead of utilizing the cut-out shapes that normally characterize his practice, he chose to transform the perforated sheets of paper into stencils to explore negative space.

In close collaboration with Printer’s Proof’s Master Printer, Mathias Malling Mortensen built his motifs by layering prints from several aquatint plates. With each pass through the press, he masked a new area of the plate using the paper stencil, allowing for a free combination of form, texture, and color. The result is a series of dynamic compositions characterized by abstract shapes and vibrant colors. The overlapping layers create playful works that thrive in the tension between a finished piece and ongoing experimentation.