Galleri Flach has the great pleasure to present Beyond Oblivion, an exhibition curated by Carl Fredrik Hårleman which includes six artists; Johanna Fjaestad, Eva Lange, Disa Rytt, Gabriela Spilsbury, Kjell Strandqvist and André Talborn.
Beyond Oblivion is an exhibition about an encounter between artists of different generations, but whose works relate and communicate with each other. It thus raises the question of how we perceive our history and artistic heritage. An artist is hopefully active for a long time and will be considered through different artistic phases and modes. New ideas come and go, some will disappear while others seem eternal and recur constantly. The exhibition brings together artists who grew up and were trained in different periods but whose works still have much in common.
The exhibition presents works of art that are based on a painterly and sculptural exploration, beginning in the 1960s until today. André Talborn, recently graduated from Umeå Art Academy, is working with an aesthetically experimental painting method in which there is an interesting relationship to the paintings of Kjell Strandqvist, who debuted as an artist in the late 1960s. The works of Strandqvist from the 1980s can be seen in the light of Talborn’s exploratory work of colors and geometric shapes, creating unexpected depth illusions and distortions on the image area. In a similar way there is a dialogue between a series of new geometric and tension-filled paintings by Disa Rytt, who graduated from the Art Academy in Stockholm in 2012, and Strandqvist’s most recent works.
There are also similarities between the archaic and archetypal sculptures of Eva Lange and the delicate and veiled paintings by Johanna Fjaestad. These works appear like thin membranes between a sensuous imagery and the reality in which they operate. Eva Lange has worked with sculpture since the 1960s, while Johanna Fjaestad graduated from Malmö Art Academy in 2012.
In the works of Gabriela Spilsbury, who graduated from the Art Academy in Stockholm in 2015, one discovers a desire to explore the image and the drawing’s ability to push its own limits and to extend from the paper into the room. Her works visualize the image as both an illusion and as an object in itself, an artistic concern that also appeared throughout the 1960s.
These six different artists bring both new and older issues to life. Together they throw a light on history in both directions, from the contemporary to the past and back again, which creates a dynamic and creative meeting beyond oblivion.