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Oblique Lattice

2022  ongoing

A constructive and concrete exploration of liquid colour and the dynamic of ascending and descending diagonal lines in interlocking grids. Using the natural force of gravity as an implement of painting invites unpredictable painterly incident. The paint runs, seeps and blurs. Beads and bleeds of colour occur. Flow marks of blooms and plumes appear. A form of performative materiality takes place.

 

Atlas  

2020. Acrylic paint on linen canvas, 195 x 150 cm each.

A simple grid structure contains, directs and defines successive washes of diluted paint. The painting process draws on gravity to make vertical, linear traces of running paint. Each painting is a concentrate of one colour. 

Fringe

Imbiß   

2016 - 2018. Two series of paintings. Acrylic paint on polyester canvas, 150 x 150 cm each. 

Painting is a physical and material passage in time. Horizontal rows of repeated marks are rapidly sponged across the canvas. Quick notations of abstract utterances run from left to right. A fast pace of immediate action. Ready movement in paint and colour. Fleeting bites of time.

 

 

Länk 

Mosaic murals for Stockholm Odenplan Station, Stockholm City Line.

Public Commission: SL Storstockholms LokaltrafikInauguration 2017.

Two walls: 250 x 1625 cm and 250 x 2090 cm

Located in a central connecting area of the vast underground surroundings of the Odenplan station, the work examines and celebrates movement through urban spaces. The colourful chain-motif represents connection, sequence, and succession of events.

 

I have a vivid childhood memory of colouring strips of paper with wax crayons to make decorative paper chains. When hanging they activated and dramatically changed the space. A combination of this memory with questions about the function of ornament was the starting point for this commission. 

 

In moving through public space, with its rush and push and moments of solitude and detachment, the physical impact of scale and colour shapes our behaviour and response. The large mosaics function as a visual symbol and physical marker that facilitate recognition and orientation in the underground passages. Movement through the space activates changing perspectives of the detailed mosaic surfaces.

 

Chains and Garlands

2011 – 2014

Painting - canvas objects - installation  

 

Intrigued by how the aesthetic device of ornament can trigger such powerfully contrasting responses as delight and antagonism, I started to rework images of decorative paraphernalia such as garlands, chains, ribbons, frills, and fringes.

The works combine formal and material restraint with notions of excess and celebration. Painted monochrome canvases are folded and unfolded or cut into strips to make garland objects of canvas chains.

 

Achilles  

2010,c-print, 100 x 120 cm

A modest gravestone simply inscribed with the name Achilles.

Mind How You Go  

2010,c-print, 100 x 120 cm

 

Folly  

2006 – 2008

This body of work includes two installations, Trouble in Utopia and Fearful Symmetry, and a series of paintings titled Pearl. The sound of a lone blackbird accompanied the exhibition at Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo (2008).

A folly is a building that to a great extent functions as ornament. The best follies are wonderfully mad and eccentric constructions. As monuments to affluence and excess they seem to represent both function and dysfunction in society.

As a source for this project I investigated the ideas, language, and narratives of ‘The Fold’, a concept connected to baroque art, architecture and philosophy. 

Drawing attention to the floor, the ground we walk on, Trouble in Utopia, is a horizontal expanse of stacked colour. The wooden components of each stack are unfixed. It is a fragile construction at risk of collapse. This work is a continuation of the earlier Lattice and Tartan works from 1997–2001.

The installation Fearful Symmetry is comprised of ten paintings and a constellation of five linear floor structures (Small Walls Gold). Each of the ten silver paintings contain an organic symmetrical figure that originate from large paint blots. The gold painted wooden components that are stacked unfixed directly on the floor suggest boundary lines. They define new spaces, creating a different and temporary order in the space. During the exhibition the Small Walls get interrupted, disturbed by unsuspecting visitors. Some people react by carefully rebuilding, others move swiftly on and away. 

The symmetrical images of the seven Pearl paintings are derived from large paint blots. The making of paint blots requires actions of folding and unfolding to create unexpected images. The blots are random shapes, open, vacant images that await responses of association and reference. A pearl begins as a response to an irritant. 

 

Pure and Promiscuous 

2001 – 2005

 

Photography is an accessible and suggestive medium that encourages construction, exaggeration and distortion. Working with photography is an extension of my work with painting, sculpture and installation. I wanted to take a closer look at issues of nature and narration connected to aspects of gender and vanity. As paradox and paradigm Pure and Promiscuous is an active condition of mutable circumstance that is open to changing perspectives and unpredictable outcomes.    

I am Nature

2001, series of 8 c-prints, 84 x 69 cm each

The title refers to Jackson Pollock's infamous response to the question ‘Why don’t you paint nature?’ 

I was thinking about how we can identify with nature as a physical body, the impulse of attributing nature with human sensitivity and emotion. A recognition of the interrelation of human and nature. 

 

These images of trees intertwined with fences were taken in central Oslo.

Close

2002-2004, series of 10 pairs, c-print, 100 x 83 cm (x 2)

Paradoxical phrases such as ‘pointedly foolish’, ‘seriously funny’, ‘bitter sweet’ and ‘pretty ugly', provided a starting

point for this series of paired photographs.The word ‘close’ changes due to context, intonation and pronunciation. Shifting meaning from the near and connected into an enclosed place or a stifling atmosphere. 'Close' can imply similarity or a sense of intensity. 

 

The paired photographs invite considerations of reception, of sequence and comparison. 

A collection of 'strangely familiar' episodes, obscure narratives and intimate observations. 

A matter of being close, not closed.

Impression 

2003, series of 6 c-prints, 89 x 70 cm each

Stripped down and making a spectacle of myself, I address aspects of perception, body and gender.

The series titled Impression refers to the body as medium and material for aesthetic creation and site for experience and contemplation. Skin as a border between self and the world. A notion of art practice as a ‘second skin’ that absorbs and protects. What is only skin deep and what gets under your skin?

 

Lattice and Tartan  

1997 – 2001

Painting - three-dimensional constructions - installation

Imagine Piet Mondrian dancing boogie-woogie in a kilt.

In this body of work, the horizontal and vertical directions of the grid meet textile connotations and questions of clan identity. Scottish tartans are vibrant grid patterns traditionally woven as a woollen cloth, each clan with their own colours, pattern and motto. The geometric framework of the grid is a basic formal device that became an emblem, heroic motto and leitmotif of modernism. Weaving and stacking are foundations of construction. Diverting the modernist grid by referring to aspects of textile history suggests a more flexible and inclusive scope of influence, context, and interpretation.

Ridå  

1997–1998

Textile work as stage curtain for the main auditorium of Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Public commission: Statens Konstråd, Stockholm

Cotton velvet,  4,6 x 17 m

Velvet is a textile that is often used for stage curtains. I was interested in the interplay of the alternating qualities of the velvet fabric seen as contrasts of the visible and the hidden, of onstage and backstage. The shiny reflective thick pile of the front side and the contrasting matt obverse side. The ordinarily reverse and hidden surface of the velvet material has been given a prominent position. This 'other side' of the moss green velvet is exposed as two asymmetrically placed, pale green vertical stripes. The repeated vertical stripes of the monochrome textile have the same width as the surrounding wooden panelling of the auditorium interior.

 

 

 

Containers  

1994 – 1995

Installation

After the dense symbolism of the Major Arcana, I was interested in colour as a lighter, purer substance, unnamed other than as content. The interior of each Container consists of different combinations of monochrome planes. The reflected colour from these painted surfaces creates illusory and luminous spaces. A vertical opening in each Container controls physical access. The more open the Container is to physical entry the fainter the interior colour becomes. The most closed Container gives a dark and black impression. The remaining four Containers give impressions of glowing red, fluorescent green, blushing rose, and evaporating pink.

 

22 Paintings  

1991 – 1992

Twenty-two paintings, oil on canvas, 192 x 82 cm each

I laughed at the humorous yet derisive interpretation of the abstract-geometric image being a 'sleeping man with large sombrero' (two concentric circles: a small circle within a much larger). The friction between the abstract and the representational, the self-referential and the symbolic-narrative called for closer inspection.

 

The symbols and allegories of the Tarot present a curious and compelling mix of the popular and the obscure.

The twenty-two trump cards and Major Arcana of the Tarot, numbered 0 – 21, can be interpreted as a pictorial procession of life’s significant events. Used for fortune telling, the Tarot is connected to occult divination and esoteric traditions such as the Kabbalah and numerology.

 

In my version of the Major Arcana I tried to achieve balance between contrasting principles and conflicting dogma.

My intention was to combine a formal, minimalist vocabulary with vivid colour, quasi-figurative elements and highly symbolical, metaphorical titles.

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