Luna Scales

Luna Scales is a video-based Danish artist. Her practice shows a consistent interest in the body, patterns of movement and directions of the gaze. With posing bodies framed in environments akin to romantic imagery, Scales often uses herself as a subject: Here, she works with the medical language and the iconographic and societal history of the body – and what has constituted a “functioning” body.

Scales questions notions of objectivity in medical terminology, when the subjects who are being treated are, in fact, embodied and highly subjective beings. A commonality in her film works is the use of slow-motion in depicting the clinical gaze – often in connection with medical examinations. Suddenly the action appears as an expression of care and tenderness, more reminiscent of a caress, drawing into question the typical understanding of the doctor/patient-relationship.

Luna Scales (b. 1992, Denmark) holds a Master of Fine Arts from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. Her work has been exhibited in numerous group shows, such as Arken Museum of Modern Art and Kunsthal Charlottenborg. In 2019, she had a solo exhibition at Bonniers Konsthall in Stockholm. In 2022 and 2021, she received working grants from the Danish Arts Foundation; prior recognition includes the Blix-award and Poul Erik Bech-award for Eyelids at Afgang 2020, as well as the KE-award for Physical Status Report at The Artists’ Autumn Exhibition in 2018. Her video piece Physical Status Report 2.0 (2021) is held in the collection of Arken Museum of Modern Art, Denmark.