Ascendancy Dance
at Alma (Nybrogatan 8)
Josefina Anjou, Lotta Melin, Gustaf Nordenskiöld, Sofia Viol
22.11 - 10.1

Andys would like to welcome you to a presentation of four artists showing works at Alma in Stockholm; Josefina Anjou (b.1993) , Lotta Melin (b.1961), Gustaf Nordenskiöld (b.1966) and Sofia Viol (b. 1975) . Alma is a members’ club and private workspace located at Nybrogatan 8 in Stockholm.

Josefina Anjou (b.1993) is an artist who intends to spawn images from an inner place out of this world, to undo dualism and binary divisions of subject/object, nature/nurture, science/fiction by pointing at the things that are both. She considers herself a co-creator, one of many agents in aseries of spooky actions manifesting her work. Her main medium is oil painting which more often than not exceeds the two–dimensional frame by the use of sculptural elements.

Lotta Melin (b.1961) is a Swedish Choreographer/Performance Artist/ Sound Artist/Visual Artist. Her artistry has been developed in close collaboration with improvisational musicians, visual and sound artists but has come to stay primarily focused on painting and sculpture. Her works often emerges where different artistic practitioners meet; dancers, actors, musicians, singers, filmmakers and artists.

Gustaf Nordenskiöld (b.1966) is established as both an artist and ceramist. His work revolves around the memories of objects and time. Sculptures and paintings that reflects an exploration of unknown places and cultures coupled with interpretations of the contemporary we live in. Ambiguous objects that are easily identified and mysterious at the same time, a work that activates memories and reminiscent of the body. Nordenskiölds works are rooted in real objects, but often the actual area of use is transformed. His works are in the space between recognition, ambiguity, figuration and abstraction.

Sofia Viol (b. 1975) is a Swedish artist merges abstract patterns with realist yet unlikely figures, personal stories with art historical references, quotes from contemporary urban culture with a studio in the woods -and a studio practice whose soundtrack of baroque harpsichords produces paintings with motifs and gestures akin to an awkwardly contemporary mannerism.

Alma
Nybrogatan 8

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Andys Gallery welcomes you to the opening of the group exhibition Hoodie Toe with artists Tomas Rydin, Ross Taylor and Sofia Viol.

Ghostwhispers, moon writing, or simply the ‘old’ brain whirring, much like the title of this exhibition, Hoodie Toe refers to the codified language and internal mutterings that fester within the studio, forewarning and denoting a painting's monstrous consequence. Smelly words, close and short, that somehow congeal on the crusty rim of quiet concentrated moments, where thought becomes a form of invocation, ideas intensify and the subconscious is appeased.

Yet, it is not clear what happens and when. From the point of view of the painting (I know, I have asked), apt descriptions are not just mere requisite and the synchronicities that lie within mark and mutter are themselves causative agents. The observable grammar that arises from this voyage is the material remnant of a real-time ticker-tape translation, a ‘title’ in this sense, a kind of True Name to its prenatal memory. Words should not be affixed to the things we make, like the name of some naff nightclub (Revolution, Re-Evolve, REIgnite). Rather, the lonely painting, along with its forlorn maker, should pertain to exist within a kind of divining time, their outcome drawn inside a circle of multiple selves. Their wares being the debased and grotesque hallucinations of one’s own private Demiurge, who belligerently critiques the work from an adjoining room and can only be half heard.

To this end, what are paintings if not vessels of moving information. Every stroke becoming clear only in the passing view of all others. In an exhibition, perhaps like the one in front of you, something intrinsic that sits in between images can be pulled and bottled up, like the guts of an exquisite corpse. A grinding album of scrolling psychic tartan, dank sigils and pillowed marginalia, appearing burnt and hoary, like the terasecond aged patterns etched into the backs of our retinas. A sentiment inextricably entwined with a type of contingency that is necessary for something to mean anything at all.


Tomas Rydin (b. 1981, Brunflo) lives and works in London. Recent exhibitions include Old Balance, AGA, Copenhagen Denmark, 2023; Room Based, Kunsthalle Freeport, Porto, Portugal, 2022; Skinned London Squatters, Guzzler, Victoria, Australia, 2021; Anti Climb Paintings, Geld, London, 2018. He is also running Rollaversion Gallery and the publishing platform Hate Modern.

Ross Taylor (b.1982, London) lives and works in London. Taylor completed his Masters in Painting at the Royal College of Art, London in 2008 and was the Abbey Scholar in Painting at the British School at Rome, Italy, between 2015-16. Recent exhibitions include Bye Bye Confidence, Ivan Gallery, Bucharest, 2024; Poison, OHSH, London, 2023 and The rumbling tum, Russi Klenner, Berlin, 2022.

Sofia Viol (b.1975, Luleå) lives and works on the outskirts of Stockholm. Viol graduated from Central Saint Martins, UAL, London with a MFA in 2009. Recent exhibitions include progpondfrogsmog Andys Gallery, Stockholm 2022; a folia at Ch’ien, Chien, Copenhagen, 2022; Smoke, Bar, Oas, Stockholm, 2021; Ahem!, Telephone Works, London, 2021 and Rök, Norrbottens Museum, Luleå, 2020.

Andys Gallery welcomes you to the opening of the gallery's first solo exhibition with the Swedish artist Josefina Anjou (b. 1993), Wingdings Weddings!, a presentation of new small- to large scale paintings.
The exhibition is running until June 20.

Josefina Anjou (Sweden, 1993) is an artist who intends to spawn images from an inner place out of this world, to undo dualism and binary divisions of subject/object, nature/nurture, science/fiction by pointing at the things that are both. She considers herself a co-creator, one of many agents in a series of spooky actions manifesting her work. Her main medium is oil painting which more often than not exceeds the two–dimensional frame by the use of sculptural elements.

Josefina Anjou graduated from The Gerrit Rietveld Academie in 2019 and this spring she is graduating Master of Fine Arts at Konstfack, Stockholm. In fall 2023, she participated in the group exhibition News from Nowhere and the Atopia of Now at Konstnärshuset in Stockholm. This is the second time she is showing with Andys Gallery, however her first solo exhibition in Stockholm.

CV Josefina Anjou

Andys Gallery är stolta att presentera galleriets första separatutställning med Malmöbaserade fotokonstnären Olof Nimar
(b. 1985), first the stupid and then the impossiblefirst impossible, en presentation av två , serier fotoverk från åren 2018-2024.

Nedan kan du läsa utställningstexten mörker, ljus, mörker och så ljus igen, skriven av curator Nils Svensk.

Olof Nimars konstnärskap rör sig mellan fotografiska och måleriska processer och traditioner. Han behandlar elementära begrepp som tid och autenticitet. Med ett konceptuellt förhållningssätt till det fotografiska utvidgar Nimar bilden i rummet genom skulpturala interventioner. 

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mörker, ljus, mörker och så ljus igen

På glid, ut ur fotografiet och samtidigt i dess centrum, så framställs de tekoppar Olof Nimar 

fotograferat. Porslinskoppen smälter samman med bakgrunden och dekoren isoleras som motiv. Vitbalansen bränner ut en form; en struktur och faktiskt en funktion (tedrickandets) ur bilden. Samtidigt frammanas en annan form, de monokroma blommorna som följer koppens kropp. 

Porslinsmålarens motiv är också motivet i Nimars bild men de är inte desamma, de är satta i rörelse från objektet, genom linsen, ut i rummet. Blomsterdekoren framträder förändrad och infogad i en skulptural struktur. Konstruktionen är på ett för Nimar karaktäristiskt sätt rätlinjig, samtidigt är den böjd runt blomsterdekoren som motiv, den kröker sig som tiden kröks i rummet runt ett tungt objekt. I snittet mellan bildrummets oändliga tomrum och bildytans sluttande plan frigörs måleriet från sitt betingande underlag och blir ett objekt försatt i rörelse, koppen underkastas och blir en yta. 

Med ett snitt skiljs motivet från en rumslig verklighet och förs in i en annan; som en bukett blommor, eller en ensam ros i en vas. Nimar har redan tidigare i flera utställningar och serier av verk byggt fysiska strukturer kring sina fotografier, de kan vara ställningar som tillsammans skapar ett annat rum i rummet (Adjacent Hour och Lily) men också platsspecifika anordningar som fogar in verken i utställningsrummets dimensioner (Wet Hair) eller också –närmare bilden– de ramar som Nimar själv bygger från grunden kring sina bilder, utav noggrant valda träslag och med en närvarande hantverksmässig färdighet. 

Bilden fogas inte in i ramen, istället byggs ramen kring bilden på samma sätt som de skulpturala strukturer som ibland håller dem. (I serien For Your Eyes Only blir ramens betydelse särskilt tydlig, bilderna visar delar av fönstren från konstnärens ateljékollektiv som övermålats med graffiti, ramarna delar till skillnad från bilderna fönstrets storlek och proportioner.)  

Rummet formuleras runt bilden och placeringen förändrar platsen (med tiden); utställningsrummet. Detta är mer än att skapa bildytor i skulpturala strukturer; om än också det, eller att ge bilden en närvaro i rummet, det är att genom objektivet ge den rumsliga strukturen en fjärde dimension av tid. 

Monet och hans målarkollegor försattes av kameran och dess teknologiska exakthet i ett –i och för sig rätt fruktbart– kristillstånd. I kontrast till fotografiets blixtsnabba utsnitt ur tiden framstod den måleriska friheten i ett nytt ljus, friheten att konstruera motivet blev tydlig. Att som Monet odla en trädgård som ett magnifikt stilleben, eller som Manet låna kamerans förmåga att skära ett skarpt snitt ur tiden i en för fotografen omöjlig bild Un bar aux Folies Bergère till exempel. 

I Nimars poster, med samma titel som utställningen, figurerar ett citat av målaren Camille Corot – som Monet kallade den enda mästaren. Citatet som skulle kunna vara en programförklaring för måleriet; att omfatta allt i ett vidsträckt fält av möjligheter utom det dumma och det omöjliga –först det dumma sedan det omöjliga.

I motsättning är kanske fotografiets främsta företräde kanske dess dumhet, att maskinen inte
tänker efter… men, bortom det dumma, bortom de trötta metaforer som fotografin kommit att underkastas finns ett omöjligt fotografi; inte ett fruset ögonblick, inte en vittnesbörd, inte ett fönster inte ett etc etc…  Ett fotografi där tiden skär genom bildens yta ut i rummet.

När vatten fryser bildas iskristaller, vattenmolekylerna som i sitt flytande tillstånd har en v-formad struktur kopplas samman i hexagoner, en struktur som kräver större utrymme. I en levande cell kan de växande iskristallerna skära sönder cellens protoplasma som en kniv. I kalla klimat vissnar många växter när dagarna blir kortare och temperaturen sjunker som ett skydd mot frosten minskar växtens vatteninnehåll, så är fallet med de flesta rosor. 

En remonterande ros sätter nya blommor igen och igen under säsongen och så länge de växer, istället för att alla blommor slår ut tillsammans och tillsammans vissnar och blir nypon, återkommer blomningen igen och igen. 

Att i ett fotografi återuppleva något avlägset men ändå bekant; att se sitt barndomshem eller sin gamla mormor kan kännas som en resa genom tid och rum. Att det avfotograferade är i en annan tid, på en annan plats, oavsett om den är bekant eller ej, hör till fotografiets grundläggande villkor –till dess materialitet. Förförståelsen av detta är dess viktigaste immateriella egenskap, det fotograferade är annorstädes, (men!) fotografiet är här. 

De frusna rosor Nimar fotograferat i serien “Den sista rosen” sätter detta i skarpt fokus. Bilderna är tagna på årets sista dag, eller för att vara precis på sina respektive års sista dagar, tidpunkter som är unika, oersättliga till och med, men samtidigt märkligt återkommande.  Det fotograferade livet har avstannat, nature morte, stilleben, still life… still living…

Med ett snitt skiljs motivet från en tid och förs in i en annan, filmens eller bildsensorns exponering i kameran tar en en bråkdel av en sekund, fotografiet kan förstås som en tunn skiva av linjär tid, vad som passerat genom slutaren och fångats upp. Att med ett snitt skilja en ros från busken – från blad, grenar, rötter, jorden… tar en bråkdel av en sekund, knivseggen skär genom själva cellmembranen och blottlägger en ny yta.

Snittblomman lämnar växtens organiska sammanhang och blir ett föremål, fortfarande levande och fortfarande bestämd att dö. Snittytan bär dock på en annan potential, att inympas i en ny struktur eller som en stickling vara tillväxtpunkten för nya rötter. Ett fotografi som skär igenom bildytan, istället för en bild en skulptur av kristalliserad tid.

Nils Svensk, curator

Olof Nimar CV

Andys Gallery is very proud to present Ulrika Lublin’s solo exhibition Minnesskum, a presentation of objects that relate to time, linguistics and composed/decomposed objects/subjects. As an addition there will be a text composed by Lublin, which may work as a map to the works installed in the show.

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Through sculpture, text and collage, Ulrika Lublin emphasizes the mobility of objects in different temporal events. Sentences, clay and glue between materials becomes a place where time and memory are stretched and mixed, where Lublin weaves together personal narratives with linguistic and philosophical questions.

For the exhibition Minnesskum, Lublin has made a series of collages in the boxes from two archive cases where material from many years of collecting is carefully highlighted and composes to a memo of sorts. Different materials have been cast and mixed together, left traces, and mirror each other. In the exhibition there is also a recurring writing, seemingly illegible scribbles that persist in being language, still.

The wavy notes doubles as a drawing, that encourages the reader to move freely between image and text.

Ulrika Lublin was born in 1985, educated at The Royal Institute of Arts (SE) and Konstfack and is based in Stockholm, Sweden. She has exhibited at venues such as Index, Workshop: Rum för konst, Platform Stockholm, Hangmen Projects, ZK/U Berlin and Stockholm Music and Arts, as well as readings and performances at e.g. Moderna Bar, Weld, Konstfack and Hordaland Kunstsenter.

CV

Puff & Watch - MSR FCJ and the aid of a ghost

𝘎𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘵: ’𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘶𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘳 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘔𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘍𝘢𝘺𝘦, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘴 𝘤𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘮𝘦. 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘸𝘰 𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘩𝘴 𝘐 𝘣𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘵 𝘮𝘺 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦, 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘸𝘰𝘰𝘥, 2 𝘣𝘺 4’𝘴, 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘶𝘴𝘵, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘭, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘴𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘧𝘧 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩 𝘪𝘵.

𝘍𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘳𝘶𝘪𝘵, 𝘧𝘰𝘨 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘳𝘣𝘰𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘴, 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘣𝘺 𝘥𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘮𝘺 𝘦𝘺𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘴𝘶𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘯 𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴, 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘦-𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘮𝘺 𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘮𝘴, 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘷𝘦, 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘶𝘧𝘧 & 𝘸𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘵 𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘢 𝘣𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘧𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴, 𝘢𝘴 𝘪𝘧 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘸𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘦.’

UK artists, Mike S Redmond & Faye Coral Johnson (MSR FCJ) consciously push experimental ideas of lo-fi making through an escapist process that they approach with playful spontaneity. Reworked and built up over time, mutating scenes reveal themselves through their back and forth process, like piles of doodles forming in a sketchbook.

Through this collaborative exchange, somewhere between the chaos and harmony of melding visual ideas, there is a complete merging, a third view, a middle ground that is unforeseen and mind-bogglingly personal.

Recently MSR FCJ have been granted various artist residencies such as IASPIS, SE and Cape Town Art Residency, SA and most recently this summer at Andys Gallery.

CV

In the contemplation of nature, its eternal cycles of birth, flourishing, decay and rebirth, the bodies are revealed as a stage in transformation. That process takes place in an atmosphere of innocence and deliberately chosen unawareness. A small room opens up to a life in fullness, and in that limited space a community of understanding emerges. For a brief moment the window was open... before the plague sealed it again.

The bodies, frozen in time, have been taken from independent gay-themed erotic films from the 70s and 80s,  work of directors such as Peter de Rome, Jack Deveau and Fred Halsted. By losing their personal identity, they turn into historical documents. They serve as a reminder of the relentless march of time and the constant change of life. Nudity is often combined with nature studies, where the landscape's mountains, greenery and flowers create a romantic desire that shows the possibility of another life, another existence. In this way, they shape a shared history that encompasses sexuality, politics, the body and nature. In this context, the complex relationship between love and death is also touched upon and how close they really are to each other.

The paintings, watercolour on paper mounted in untreated wood frames, are flowing and the brushstrokes become immediately physical and can be related to Qi Baishi's ink paintings. The portrayal is raw, passionate, revealing and fragile. The title of the series, Bless Us Sun is borrowed from a poem by Derek Jarman, the works are indirectly related to his cinematic work and his garden in Dungeness.

The sculptures take shape as distorted plant-like figures in oil on stoneware. Similar to the watercolours, a direct, physical transfer to the clay, stretched, beaten and bent matter. The painting on the ceramic body is pasty, fleshy, fluid and fast. Like the eternal course of nature and the fragile existence of the human body.

Gustaf Nordenskiöld is established as both an artist and ceramist. He has been recognized with numerous exhibitions in Sweden and abroad and is represented at Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, Röhsska Museum in Gothenburg, the Malmo Art Museum, ASU Art Museum in the United States and Magnelli, Musee de la Ceramique in Vallauris, France.

CV

Andys Gallery is very pleased to announce a solo exhibition with Swedish artist Ellinor Lager. The exhibition Matrixial Implosions | Contracted Self is a presentation of sculpture, drawing, painting and installation.

Ellinor Lager (b. 1986) is a Malmö based artist. Her work deals with the complexity of female body, processes of creation and language. By breaking out forms of embedded and embodied knowledge she sees her practice as a writing with objects a form-ulation of a bodily syntax aside of the patriarchal entanglement, and refers to her sculptures as mnemes: the persisting effect of memory.

Lager holds an MFA from Malmö Art Academy (2018) She has been awarded Edstrandska Grant (2018) and Aase och Richard Björklunds grant (2019) from Malmö Art Museum. She is represented in the Malmö Art Museum collection. Lager has worked as an assistant for American artist Theaster Gates at dOCUMENTA(13) and in Dorchester, Chicago (2015). Lager also works as a doula since 2019.

Text by Gertrud Sandqvist

(In Swedish only)

Utan dröjsmål börjar kvinnan krysta. Med ett djurs kraft. (-) Och naturligtvis kommer barnet ut, rullar,faller. Gode Gud! vilken fart! Och vilken tystnad! Vad var det som kom ut? Hon erinrar sig att man måste skrika. Alltså skriker hon. Skriket växer, slår rot i luften, sprider på ett ögonblick sina ljud, sina vibrationer, sina nomadiska toner. Redan nu vilket lopp, vilken flykt! Pojke eller flicka? Det är ett språk.

(Hélène Cixous, La (1976) . Citerat av Kerstin Munck, Att föda text,2004)

En kort tid efter att Ellinor Lager fött sitt första barn, Ebbe-Lo 2015, återupptar hon tecknandet av sitt språk- eller ett språk, som alla språk både form och tecken i vilka en kan lägga betydelser. Just detta språk, uttryckt genom trådarna i en upprepad trasmatta, är ovanligt eftersom det är mer form och tecken än abstraktion. Figurerna pekar som tecken utöver sig själva, men tvekar i steget till det symboliska.

Bracha L Ettinger beskriver  detta mellantillstånd som en plats som är matrixial och som ligger bortom uppdelningen i kön. Med Jacques Lacan  menar hon att konsekvensen av jouissance, orgasmen, finns i mötet av Symbol och Realitet, och det är platsen för det omedvetna.

Julia Kristeva beskriver samma plats i platonska termer som Khora, en plats som gör form snarare än är form.

Ellinor Lagers figurativa språk kan också ses som en uppsättning modeller för skulptur. Mneme's Nona (2021) och Contractions (2021) är objekt, men samtidigt tecken för begrepp. En sammandragning är något varje barnaföderska känner igen som en del av förlossningsarbetet. Genom att låta fenomenet bli ett begrepp och skulptur för Ellinor Lager in det i språket, hon ”metaforiserar”, transporterar det till en plats utanför kroppen – samma process som Helène Cixous beskriver. Samtidigt behåller skulpturen sin närhet till kroppen – den har till och med fötter – på ett sätt som de tecken vi kallar alfabet inte kan göra.

Den moderliga kroppen som symbolisk form  - eller mellanform- som ett tecken för relation snarare än symbios blir tydlig i Arousie (2023). Här har Ellinor Lager lånat titeln från de första skulpturer Eva Hesse gjorde 1965, Ringaround Arosie. De är ett mellanting mellan teckning och skulptur. De utskjutande formerna refererar enligt Hesse till bröstvårtor och penis, som en hyllning till hennes vän Rosalyn Goldman som just blivit mor.

Ellinor Lager utgår från en serie akvareller genom vilka hon finner sin skulptur i gips. Liksom hos Hesse ser vi hölje efter hölje, lager efter lager omsluta. Hos Hesse hennes första skulptur, hos Lager ett tomrum. Jag tänker igen på Platons Khora, det som gör form men inte är form. Också materialet gips , som kan sägas göra form men inte vara form kan lånas till metaforen. Julia Kristeva talar om Khoran i Revolution in Poetic Language( 1974, 1984) där den är semiotik, själva grunden för det poetiska språket.

I detta moderliga formgivande avlöser generationer döttrar sina mödrar bortom individen. Arousie saknar anletsdrag. Detta kollektiv kan uppfattas som skrämmande, men inte för Ellinor Lager. Hon införlivar tvärtemot sin mors akvarell som ett led i processen som leder till Arousie. Hennes mor målar sin upplevelse av att föda Ellinor. Ellinor målar vidare i Betwixt and Between. Födelse leder till födelse.

Ytterligare en skulptur ingår i tematiken, The Fold (2023). Här ser vi ett veckat tyg uppträtt på en stålställning. Textila inslag är vanliga hos Ellinor Lager. Ofta ingår de i ett absurt/humoristiskt spel med vardagliga detaljer ur en heminteriör. Här associerar de snarare till Luce Irigarays berömda term ”bilabial” som ska ses som ett svar till Jacques Lacans allenarådande Fallos. Mer direkt är Irigarays term en reaktion på en berömd text av Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Chiasm, där han beskriver den grundläggande upplevelsen att röra vid och bli rörd som en serie veck, invecklingar och utvecklingar. Irigaray ser den manliga kroppen i texten, och undrar var den moderliga är någonstans. Hon myntar sin berömda metafor om läpparna på en mångtydig fras i Merleau-Pontys text. Hos Ellinor Lager blir vecket påtagligt (det är ju vad en skulptur gör) och  hon associerar till en av sina meditationer, där hon ser en japansk klok kvinna med solfjäder vandra iväg.

Contraction, C o n t r  a c t i o n, eller Sammandragning är titeln på ett bokprojekt från 2021, där Lager gjorde en sammanställning av allt material om sammandragningar som hon fann på Wikipedia. Känslorna, upplevelsen av att få sammandragningar fanns inte med i artiklarna. Det äldre ordet för sammandragning, värkar eller labor, säger dock något om erfarenheten. Boken är tillägnad de sammanlagt 9,5 timmar konstnären upplevde contractions under sina två förlossningar.

I likhet med Hélène Cixous använder Ellinor Lager konsten för att låta (bild)språk och (moders)kropp mötas, förenas och skiljas. Det är en födelse.  

Gertrud Sandqvist

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~~~~> Max
Varför ska man skriva/säga att
något är bra litar man bara
på orden eller låter man det framför
sig använda sitt eget språk och så
står man där bara framför och en
ny kanal har grävts.

— Marie-Louise Ekman

Andys Gallery is very pleased to present the exhibition Fake Painting, a solo presentation of the Swedish artist Max Olofsson (b.1983).

Painting, to this day, is still helplessly intertwined with its physicality. When I show the paintings I’ve made on my phone, people often ask: ‘Haven’t you made any real paintings?’

I think painting, by already being abstracted by an entire dimension as the medium premise, holds a unique position in the digital realm in that it is able to circumvent the whole documentation process and get straight to communicating ideas (pictures): instead of relying on a camera to translate a specific physical materiality to pixels on a screen, it can utilise the pixels as paint, directly! — Max Olofsson

Max Olofsson’s paintings in the exhibition Fake Painting are created digitally, in a simple painting app on his phone, and brought into the physical world as pigment prints on canvas. They are coated with UV-varnish and finally painted over with transparent acrylic - applied in one go - in thick, expressive brush strokes that does not really have anything to do with the images. 



The paintings symbolise an inverse relationship between the digital and the physical; between original and representation. They are all painted in the same original pixel resolution but have been assigned varying physical sizes to simulate a zoom effect.


Max Olofsson (b. 1983) is playfully critical of the painting's exhibition standard and material fetish and experiments with alternative methods of presentation. Thematically he touches on authenticity, fiction and documentation and aesthetically he oscillates between seriously abstract, and fun cartoon pop figurative - often balancing somewhere in between. His paintings are distinctive and funny but at the same time mysterious; an abandonment rests in them, like fragments of a world of memory in blossoming ruins.

Max Olofsson has since his MA graduation from Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm in 2012 been exhibited at numerous solo and group exhibitions, both in Sweden and internationally. He lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden.

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Press

Andys Gallery is very pleased to present A Curved Straight Line, a solo exhibition of paintings by the Norwegian artist Gitte Eidslott (b. 1985 in Ålesund, Norway).

In Eidslott’s painting, contrasts and the merging of colours are central elements, where a wordless language is allowed to speak. Lines and colour meander over the surface, which is somewhere between the material and the immaterial. As parts of an unknown story, each work leaves traces in the form of inscriptions on the canvas, where the artist has painted layer upon layer. The surface becomes a window to the absolute, a wordless and unrepresentable place.

An underlying theme in Eidslott’s work is the impact that the sea has on us, after she herself grew up on an island surrounded by the Atlantic. In the paintings you can read movement, such as in the surface of the sea.

The sea symbolises the flow through, life and movement, but also the immense, unknown and destructive – and in psychoanalysis – our subconscious. The sea gives life, but it also takes life, like nature in general. It can also be seen as a mirror image of how we humans think and act, with conflicting and contrasting sides - the life-giving contra the destructive, the strong contra the weak.

In A Curved Straight Line Eidslott has worked with a series of works that are inspired by, among other things, the Polish philosopher Zygmund Bauman’s work Liquid Modernity where the liquid is a metaphor for the fleeting modernity, and the changes become the only
permanent thing.

Gitte Eidslott (b. 1985) is based in Malmö since 2016 and educated at Akademin Valand and Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna.
Her most recent exhibitions were at Platforms projects (Athens), Molekyl Gallery, Galleri CC (Malmö) and Galleri Cora Hillebrand (Gothenburg). Upcoming exhibitions are at Alta Art Space (Malmö) and Krona museum (Molde, Norway).

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Andys Gallery is happy to announce the year’s first solo exhibition, Sloanely Ranger with the Finnish artist Janne Räisänen (b. 1971 in Pudasjärvi, Finland).

Janne Räisänen works with painting and drawing on paper and canvas. In his practice, he starts with drawings as a basic ground from where he continues with various painting elements. The stories in the motifs are as playful as they are dark, with titles leading you further into its kernel or off onto stray roads. Strange stories of our time, faces everywhere, creatures in barren landscapes, composed in repeatedly drawn lines to be completed with diluted oil paint, among a longer list of material.

In the exhibition at Andys Gallery, Räisänen has his starting point from a trip to London and a greater interest in the late Princess of Wales, Lady Diana. The exhibition title, Sloanely Ranger, is a play on words with the term Sloane Ranger, a fashion style within the British upper class, and lonely as the lone rider that Räisänen identifies himself as.
In Sloanely Ranger, there will be a selection of mid- to large scale oil
paintings.

Janne Räisänen (b. 1971, Pudasjärvi) lives and works in Berlin. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki in 1998, was awarded the Finnish Art Society’s Ducat Prize in 1998 and was named Young Artist of the Year 1999, together with Janne Kaitala and Jukka Korkeila. In 1999 and 2001, he was nominated for the Carnegie Art Award and, in 2004, for the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative.

In 2008 Räisänen was awarded the William Thuring Foundation’s main prize. Räisänen’s works are in most Finnish public collections - e.g. HAM - Helsinki Art Museum, Kiasma, Sara Hildén Art Museum and Wihuri Collection - and in several collections abroad. His works were shown at Schwarz Contemporary, Berlin, in 2015 and 2017; Salon Dahlmann, Berlin, in 2015; and at Galerie Anhava in 2012 and 2010. Janne Räisänen is represented by Helsinki Contemporary (Finland) and Schwarz Contemporary (Germany).

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Canvas not laid bare but draped, dressed in dress and dresses scarfs and textiles, out of folds shows arms and heads, head with face, hand with fingers, eye looks in, hair falls out and down; drapes fold Delft blue, hands the ends of limbs let out of coated turtle shell like canvased body drawing grimace face while figure looks from back; eyes focused, fists clenched, lay on ground like torso robed, eyes closed, dress worn, tissue wrapped, hands stretched, shaped and bent, fingers curved, nails touch; clothes fell fall fold weave in hue of pyrole red or tinted sand while hair does too fall wave and float from scarf on head framed eyes, bridge of nose, smoke from mouthhole, outof scalp skull head hair moved by wind as dress on veiled chest shoulder; hands and feet from robe undraped while foot steps onto hand of body, breaths out smoke and air from self while waving, dripping, spill on canvas, canvased; oil on, in, puddle, pond, float, flat magenta creasing fleeting too through skin and surface to within through tissue, skin and fabric, coat and canvas coated, draped, veiled, surface tensioned, frog eyed stare, posture posed, hands and hands again as signs, neon and vermilion looked at and out of squinted arches eye brows headscarf locks of hair back onto her, and back.

Text by Henning Lundkvist

Andys Gallery is proud to present a solo exhibition with Swedish artist Sofia Viol (b.1975), progpondfrogsmog. Sofia Viol merges abstract patterns with realist yet unlikely figures, personal stories with art historical references, quotes from contemporary urban culture with a studio in the woods -and a studio practice whose soundtrack of baroque harpsichords produces paintings with motifs and gestures akin to an awkwardly contemporary mannerism.

In the exhibition at Andys, there will be a presentation of oil on linen paintings by Viol, accompanied by a variety of readings and performances by Henning Lundkvist (writer/artist), Niklas Tafra (artist), Gisa Pantel (artist) and Eugene Sundelius von Rosen (poet/artist) in the first weekend of the exhibition.

Viol was recently showing work in her solo exhibition a folia at Ch’ien Chien in Copenhagen in summer 2022. Other recent shows includes Smoke at Bar Oas in 2021, Ahem! at Telephone Works in London in 2021 and Rök at Norrbottens Museum in 2020. She graduated in MA Fine Art at University of the Arts/Central Saint Martins College of Arts, London, UK in 2009. Sofia Viol is now based outside Stockholm, Sweden.

Opening

Friday November 11, 12.00 - 20.00
The artist will be present during the day

Performances

Friday November 11 at 19:00
Eugene Sundelius von Rosen
Henning Lundkvist

Saturday November 12 at 14:00
Niklas Tafra
Gisa Pantel
Henning Lundkvist

Andys Gallery proudly presents the solo exhibition Mitt ansikte är bortrest (in Eng. My face is gone) with Swedish Choreographer/Performance Artist/Sound Artist/Visual Artist Lotta Melin (b. 1961).

The exhibition title is borrowed from the Syrian poet Adonis who has become a guide for the main work in the exhibition, Mina blinda stigar (in Eng. My Blind Paths): an installation of 52 small scale wall hung works. Along with the serie there will be a presentation of paintings, drawings, sculpture and performance.

Melin’s artistry has been developed in close collaboration with improvisational musicians, visual and sound artists but has come to stay primarily focused on painting and sculpture. Her works often emerges where different artistic practitioners meet; dancers, actors, musicians, singers, filmmakers and artists.

Lotta Melin has created larger stage works that have been played and toured on stages in Sweden such as Dansens Hus, MDT, Atalante, Kulturhuset, as well as more site-specific works at The Academy of Fine Arts and Liljevalchs Konsthall.

Internationally, Melin has toured in over 25 countries and over the years she has worked with many internationally renowned musicians such as Kim Gordon, Sonic Youth, Jim O´Rourke, Ikue Mori, Fred Frith and Zeena Parkins.

In recent years, Lotta Melin has exhibited at Rymd, Dalslands Konstmuseum, Färgfabriken, Falsterbo Konsthall, Weld and most recently Pumphuset Konsthall in Borstahusen, Sweden.

As an extension to the exhibition, there will be an artist book released. The title of the artist book - Mina Blinda Stigar (in Eng. My Blind Paths) - which also is a title borrowed from Adonis, is a collected work of images from one of the installations in the show. In addition, there will be a few exclusive editions with original drawings inserted, available for purchase. The artist’s book is designed by Patric Leo.

During the five week exhibition period, there will be readings, performance and talks at the gallery, as an addition to the physical works presented.

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Andys Gallery is presenting the solo exhibition Stålet som skadar kroppen och det som rispar själen (Transl. The Steel Which Cuts Your Body and That Which Bruise Your Soul) with Swedish artist Jonas Nobel (b. 1970).

Jonas Nobel is based in Stockholm working mainly with sculpture, drawing and installation. Since graduating from Umeå Academy of the Arts in 1998, he has had a broad praxis which, in addition to his own artistry, also includes work with the design and architecture collective Uglycute.

The exhibition at Andys Gallery will be a presentation of new works consisting of chainsaw made wooden sculptures, drawings in dry pastels and charcoal as well as 3D rendered images. It’s an exploration in the border of the physical (analogue) and non-physical (digital), a journey between life and death.

Jonas Nobel has become interested in working with something highly concrete and direct, like the chainsaw.  In contrast to the speed, noisiness, smell and physicality of the chainsaw, Nobel has in parallell been working on sculpting in the computer.   

With some hidden allusions to the painting The Death of Socrates (by Jacques-Louis David in 1787), at times wrapped in wit, Nobel continues to work with symbolics and finds passwords to dimensions in materiality by using a manifold of techniques to his help.

Over the years, Nobel has participated in a number of exhibitions himself as well as  with Uglycute such as Emsher Kunst, Duisburg 2013, Marabouparken, Sundbyberg 2012, Moderna Museet 2006, Warsaw Museum of Modern Art 2009, Utopia Station, Venice Biennale in 2003. His works are represented in collections such as Magasin lll, Moderna Museet and Statens konstråd. 

Jonas Nobel’s website

Jonas Nobel’s CV

Matias Di Carlo
The Space Between

Andys Gallery is pleased to present the fourth exhibition in the new space, a solo presentation with Argentinian artist Matias Di Carlo (b.1978). Di Carlo is a sculptor with a long history in artistic iron smithing, with a heritage from Italy. This will be the first time the artist show in a Scandinavian country.

The sculptural language of Di Carlo derrives from both philosophical theories in Deleuze’s writings on the fold (le pli), and the complexity of our nature as well as the universe.
He construct the material in the same way a word or a paper or the volume in the three-dimensional space is being folded. There is no inside neither an outside of the sculpture.

As a fourth generation iron smithing, he holds s a Mastery in Blacksmithing and Metal Forging techniques, dominating the most complex and refined wrought iron and forging processes, through apprenticeship in the family workshops in Argentina.

Di Carlo’s works are minimal, but with a playful formal language allowing the spectator to look beyond the rigour history of the materials used. 

In June, one of Di Carlo’s works will be placed at Vanadisplan in Stockholm. The sculpture is commissioned by Stockholm Konst.

Matias Di Carlo is represented by Tönnheim Wadström Gallery, he lives and works in Marbella, Spain.

“The Fold is space, movement and time”

Matias Di Carlo

RIPE!
Group exhibition

Josefina Anjou, Gitte Eidslott, Torbjörn Johansson, Ellinor Lager,
Ulrika Lublin, Lotta Melin, Olof Nimar, Jonas Nobel, Max Olofsson, Svitlana Shcherban, Sofia Viol och WTITB

Egill Sæbjörnsson
OBJECT SPECIES: The Lipsticks

Andys is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Icelandic artist Egill Sæbjörnsson (b. 1973). An exhibition that presents sculptures as object species, as part of a large holistic exhibition project by the artist, taking place at various places in Stockholm this spring. The presentation at Andys consists of an installation between the gallery rooms – a reference to Pino Pascalo, Primo piano labbra (1964). Two mouths that belong to Egill Sæbjörnsson’s imaginary friends, the 36 meter high trolls Ugh & Boogar. The trolls appear for the first time at the Venice Biennale in 2017 when Iceland invited Egill Sæbjörnsson to exhibit in the Icelandic pavilion. The trolls, that are imaginary characters stem from Egill’s background of storytelling and emphasize the importance of play in our time.  

With a background in painting, the Icelandic artist Egill Sæbjörnsson has over the past twenty-five years developed works of art that bring together 3D environments, digital projections, technology and sound. It's revolving around small intimate exhibitions in museums or galleries to large-scale permanent public works. His ground-breaking architectural installation Steinkugel for the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, is the first self-generating permanent video installation initiated outdoors in Germany.   

Egill Sæbjörnsson’s art can be sheer beauty, other times he surprises with hideous wild trolls. What connects these contraries is the technological examination – with painting and sculpture as a basis – of the space between the physical and the virtual, which Sæbjörnsson sees as one and the same reality. His art is seemingly humorous and playful, but seeks deeper ontological and philosophical issues. He regularly gives lecture performances where he examines the theoretical basis of his practice.   

Egill Sæbjörnsson has exhibited at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, the Frankfurter Kunstverein, the National Gallery in Prague, the 57th Art Biennale in Venice, and in 2019 he was nominated for the Ars Fennica Art Prize in Finland.  

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Review Omkonst 2022.05.11

Review DN 2022.05.05

MSR FCJ
Cartoon Moon

In rejection of conventional attitudes towards art, Mike S Redmond and Faye Coral Johnson (MSR FCJ) consciously push experimental ideas of lo-fI making. Through an escapist process that they approach with playful spontaneity, comics are large scale, abstract is figurative, ephemeral is treasure, narrative is ambiguous and context is obscured with wordplay that gives some skunk a scent.

Through this collaborative exchange, somewhere between the chaos and harmony of melding visual ideas, there is a complete merging, a third view, a middle ground, that is unforseen and mind-bogglingly personal.

Since 2006 MSR FCJ have been filling walls and pages throughout the UK, Europe and the US. They have been published worldwide, exhibited throughout the UK, US, France, Belgium and Denmark and have been awarded residencies in the UK, France and Switzerland.

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MSR FCJ

PIOTR MAKOWSKI 
Kompozycje

Andys Gallery presents the premiere exhibition Kompozycje by Polish artist Piotr Makowski (b. 1985). Makowski makes compositions in series and this solo presentation include works from Neopop, all made in 2021-22. The Neopop works are all based on an abstraction of the human face and its most contrasting parts: eyes, nose, mouth. The arrangement of these elements, their relations to each other and the nuances related to their form holds the most visible emotions in a human being. However, the emotions that are inscribed in Makowski's faces have all been reduced, simplified and deformed. 

Makowski's artistic process began as an experiment of contrasting different visual aspects of works such as organic and geometric shapes, simple movements and complex. Monochrome black with intense vivid colors, an expressive painting combined with the simplicity of the graphic shapes, sketchy parts together with more elaborated fragments. 

Piotr Makowski (f. 1985) work and lives in Gdynia, Poland. Makowski's work has been shown internationally at galleries and art fairs such as Ciaccia Levi, Paris, France; Perrotin, Paris, France; NOMAS Foundation, Rome, Italy; NADA Miami Beach, USA and Liste Art Fair Basel, Basel, Switzerland. He graduated in 2011 from Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk in 2011 (MA). 

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Piotr Makowski

Ciaccia Levi