Our memories become distorted over time. They are affected by our emotions and the details we have experienced as particularly important. They are affected by our opinions and our world views. Our memories are subjective, but we perceive them as absolute truths.
Photographs help us remember. Nowadays this also applies to digital images. But images can easily be manipulated. What has happened or not is not as important as what we think has happened, what we experience as the truth.
We leave traces behind us. We distort and manipulate what we want to remember, and above all what we want the posterity to remember. Our brains decompose, our memories are fading. A constructed memory is all that remains. An absolute truth in the form of manipulated images.

In the art project Minneskonsolidering (Memory Consolidation), I reflect upon how our memories change over time, and how we perceive the past in relation to what we are taking for granted as the truth.

BERGAMO (2018, video, 3:57 min) deals with the subjective memory of a place, a time, a feeling. But above all, the film is about what we do not remember, and the gaps we choose to fill ourselves.

a short film, showing the process behind my latest art project.

My recent artwork is based on digital reproductions of paintings from the (western) art history canon. A historiography consisting of so-called “masterpieces”. I select digital photos of well-known paintings and print them on paper. Then, I work impulsively and improvised. I draw and paint on the images in a swift process where I try to separate the movements of the hand from the conscious mind, thus evoking subconscious impulses. “Automatic drawing.”

I photograph the images, transfer them to a computer, manipulate them, print them, and then I repeat the process.
I decompose the images. I distort them. I enhance colors and composition. I replace elements. I create something new out of something old. No end result ever occurs. There is no final product, only an endless process. A visual story telling where the past meets the present in a motion towards the future. I call each image a “remix”.

The purpose is to make the creative process visable, and to explore the subconscious and iconographically influenced art practice. However, the images are at the same time interpretations that can give access to new ways to regard or understand well-known motives. The questioning of originality versus reproduction. Where do we draw the line between “genuine” and “fake”? What significance does words like “original”, “masterpiece” and “genius” have today, during the escalating and constant flow of images we are exposed to each and every day?

Album cover for The Ring The River – Alone at the theatre

Just finished the album cover for the upcoming debut album by THE RING THE RIVER. Should be out in January 2018, so keep your eyes and ears open.

The cover is basically the C-print/painting “Virgin Enthroned” that I created back in 2015, but it just resonates perfectly with the dark and surreal music of the band.

a short film, presenting details from my latest paintings.

WESTERN BURIAL

The purpose of my artistry is to express – through black humour, deadly seriousness and abstract poetry – my own experiences and observations regarding the world, life itself and the present times. My art reflects on xenophobia, nostalgia, beauty ideals and overconsumption, but without concretization or banalization. The ambiguity is obvious because art is always subjective. It is up to the viewer to reflect on what is communicated.

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Art is a process that begins with an idea, which leads to further thoughts and questions. What is communicated is never as interesting as the communication itself, since it is the key to development.
As my form of expression I have chosen painting, because it’s so deeply rooted in the past and at the same time serves as a bridge to the future. My paintings are dialogues between art historical genres – such as expressionism, symbolism, surrealism and realism – and the present day where it all comes together through references and eclecticism.

SAINT JEROME GOES BOOM

In my latest series of paintings I quote earlier artists, with the intention to create something new out of something familiar. I walk consciously in the footsteps of others before me, to explore new paths and to explore what can be communicated through visual means.

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My interest in the past stems from my recent studies in the art scientific field: especially the constructed art history that we too often take for granted; the different art theories that come and go; the social conditions which determine the possibilities of art production. Everything is impermanent and changeable, yet at the same time (paradoxically) constantly reproduced.

All of this can be discerned in my art, where traditional painting – despite being pronounced “dead” – can be seen dancing of the graves of the -isms.

in this film i’ve tried to materialize memories from a recent past.
are these memories real, or do they simply exist as a fantasy, based on photographs and videos?
by sharing them with others, it becomes their memories too.
is it possible to give someone else your memories?

this film is part of a larger art project about time and memories. but it is also a summary of the art i’ve created 2013-2016. it’s an epitaph, an epilouge, a postscript. a postcard from the present to the future regarding the past.

here’s a new video for an old song of mine, please enjoy.

this song is about growing older, in a world growing colder.
the video is a reflection on the past, and how you might perceive that past in a dream. somewhere between the “reality” of old photographs, recorded memories and the blurry state of pasting together shattered pieces of your childhood lies the truth. or rather: your version of the truth. in this case – my version.

I’ve been invited to show a few works at Västerås Konstmuseum, together with six other former students from Västerås Konstskola. The exhibition – titled “7+1” – will open at 18.00, Thursday 12 May (2016), and go on until May 22 (2016).
For more info, visit: http://www.vasteraskonstskola.se/?p=1835

In other news I’m currently planning a big summer exhibition @ The Circus in Västerås, a nice little cocktail bar located in the center of town. I’ll be showing both new and older works, and the grand opening should take place around the beginning of June. More details will soon be announced!

In my recently initiated series FRAGMENT I paint on used LP-covers, creating a set of seemingly disparate parts, parts that together form a spatiality and puts each other in motion by contrasting effects with colours and shapes. An illusory depth occurs on the flat surface. These parts can – in theory – be interchanged. They may be connected in any possible rhizomatic way, thus creating new images.