There is no Easy Way Down

Executed in 2009, and included in the artist’s graduate show at the Royal Academy of Arts that year, There is No Easy Way Down is an early example of Peter Linde Busk’s wide-ranging conceptual practice. Born in Copenhagen, and based in Berlin, his multi-media practice draws upon a broad range of literary, pop-cultural and art-historical references, seeking to capture universal emotions and states. Speaking of the present work, the artist explains ‘I went to Dahab, Egypt with my girlfriend to scuba dive. The Blue Hole is one of the most beautiful and dangerous diving sites in the world; if you descend too quickly you can get Nitrogen Narcosis, or “the martini effect”, a disorientation similar to drinking 1 martini every 10 metres. The collage came together quite quickly. Everything was ready like the ingredients for a stir fry. I stuck down the first batch of paper and canvas and rolled yellow printing ink onto all the squares, leaving the horizontal bands in the bottom white. Then I stuck down some more squares and inked these up in black. In the end I added the vertical bands around the sides of the top. I wanted to create a kind of eerie descent … The title is taken from the Carol King song of the same name. I only know it in Mark Eitzel’s interpretation, but why would you need another? The bitter sweet paradox just matched the collage.’