Author name: Odalisque

Jordana Loeb: “Each Process Has Its Own Dimension” text Natalia Muntean Jordana Loeb’s practice bridges printmaking, sculpture, sound, and movement, creating deeply transformative works that connect natural materials with themes of memory, heritage, and interaction. Her experimental approach—most recently exemplified by her ongoing project Wooden Feedback—demonstrates an innovative fusion of traditional techniques with contemporary performance and sound. The American artist, who is based in Stockholm, has been awarded the Ann-Margret Lindell Stipendium by Grafikens Hus, in recognition of her contributions to graphic arts. In our conversation, Loeb offers insights into her creative process and the evolving dialogue between materials, movement, and sound. Natalia Muntean: Your practice merges printmaking, sculpture, and sound with influences from dance and movement. How do you ensure these elements communicate cohesively in your work?Jordana Loeb: One aspect that has tied printmaking, sculpture and sound together in my practice has been the material, such as wood. Through hours of repetitive carving, I started to question the material. Does the tone of the wood change from carving at different depths? How do the density, hardness and type of wood also affect the sound? In the ongoing project, “Wooden Feedback”(2022-), a series of carved resonating boards, I have combined relief processes, sculpture and sound in connection with the moving body. Each of these processes has its own dimension, and the combination of the four, as seen in this work, allows for them to coexist. I am drawn to letting the material speak for itself and giving it the space to do so. This has been important as it shows the cause and effect. Specifically in how the sonic feedback loop is driven by the interaction between the body’s movements and wooden boards. NM: What inspired you to merge your background in movement with traditional graphic techniques, and how has it evolved?JL: During my Bachelor’s at Syracuse University, I first thought I would major in Communication Design, yet I found myself stuck at a screen. By chance, I took a printmaking relief course and realised that I was spending more time in the studio as I was constantly moving. I think the lack of movement from my every day started this merge with printmaking. As I reflect on previous and current works, I’ve noticed a pattern of focusing on movements of balance, weight and tension. Especially in my sculptural work “Apple pillars: echo” (2024), a series of carved apple logs fused in steel, balancing from its own pressure and force. I find myself swaying between sculpture, print, sound and performance as each document the process from its own angle. I think this way of working helps me to understand what I am doing and to get closer to my work. We met up with the artist Hank Grüner (b.1991 Bogota, Colombia) who currently lives and works in Stockholm. Grüner approaches his artistic practice from a place of adoption, resulting in a personal history and deeply personal experiences, paired with an exploration of cultural heritage, belonging, and transformative mythology. He portrays these themes in his latest exhibition ’Signs from above’, which features six sculptural works displayed over 96 square meters on the facade of Sthlm02 Studion, a creative initiative by Skanska Fastigheter in Hammarby Sjöstad.Grüner is represented by Coulisse Gallery in Stockholm. His previous exhibitions include solo shows at Bam Berlin, Galleri Thomassen, and the Swedish Embassy in Paris, among others. He has also gained attention for his collaboration with Our Legacy. Why are you doing an exhibition in Hammarby Sjöstad?I have dreamt about creating something this big for a long time, that dream also involved creating something public that would reach people on a bigger scale. This peace will be a part of peoples daily routine, their way to work and schools. My goal is always to reach people that normally don’t get in touch with art and that also makes the form of public art even more appealing to me. The opportunity to make this artwork came through the building company Skanska, which I am really grateful for. Tell us more about your background.I was born in Colombia and came to Sweden and my new family when I was three months. My whole life has been coloured by the fact that I was adopted. The question of What if? That sliding doors moment. When I create something, I always include those questions and sometimes I find answers in my creations. I find time after time that my heritage is set deep into my bones, how I paint flowers and patterns with colors that are so significant for my Colombian heritage and typical for where I came from.I am not traditional in how I work, I never finished any art school and learned most of what I know through my mentor and former boss Christopher Nying, founder and CD of Our Legacy. My work includes paintings, sculptures, ceramics, and more.

Fanny Hellgren: “Each Work Is a Universe in Itself” text Natalia Muntean Born in 1992 in Gothenburg, Fanny Hellgren is an artist whose work bridges the ephemeral and the eternal, capturing the cycles of nature and humanity’s search for meaning. Through innovative techniques blending sand, water, and pigment, she creates mesmerising landscapes and sculptures that reflect geological processes and cosmic origins. This experimental approach, steeped in both scientific inquiry and mysticism, has earned her the prestigious Ann-Margret Lindell Stipendium for excellence in graphic art, making Hellgren one of the four receivers of the 2024 Ann-Margret Lindell Stipend offered by Grafikens Hus. Find out more insights about the artist’s creative process and how her art resonates with contemporary audiences navigating environmental and existential crises. Natalia Muntean: Your work delves into geological processes and their connection to cosmic origins. How do you think these themes of time and materiality resonate with contemporary audiences?Fanny Hellgren: I think these more eternal themes that I work with are always relevant in a way. Now, when we’re in the middle of an environmental crisis, ideas of how we’re part of nature and what our role is to it resonates with many people I believe. At times of political conflicts, wars, and humanitarian crises, people tend to search for more existential and spiritual expressions. NM: How did you develop this method of working with sand, pigment, and water, and what challenges or discoveries have shaped it?FH: I began making these works in 2020 during the pandemic when I was studying at Malmö Art Academy at the time and the school shut down suddenly. I didn’t have access to my studio anymore and this forced a turning point in my practice. I began spending a lot of time walking at the Ribersborg beach in Malmö, so I began making works outdoors using sand, stones and graphite powder to make marks on paper. The process evolved quite fast and I started using a spray gun to apply pigments mixed with water onto sand-covered papers. I constantly discover new directions and results within this process. One important discovery was when I started using slightly bigger grains of sand, which resulted in the contour of every grain becoming visible and imprinted on the paper. This is conceptually important for this series. When you see the works close-up they are very detailed – you can see how the grains gather as islands and how the water finds its way around the dunes. But seen from a distance this is not perceptible and instead other patterns and shades appear. It’s like each work is a universe in itself. NM: What does receiving the Ann-Margret Lindell Stipend mean for you, both personally and professionally, and how do you see it shaping your future as an artist?FH: I’m very honoured to receive this grant. It means that I can dive deeper into my process to develop it and give myself the space in terms of time and money that is needed to take it seriously. NM: The stipend celebrates excellence in graphic art. What do you think makes your approach to graphic art unique, and how does it align with the values of this award?FH: I have never worked in a particularly traditional way with any medium. Instead, I prefer an experimental approach to the materials I use and enjoy discovering my own unconventional techniques. My sand drawings can be defined as drawings, paintings, or graphic art and I’m glad the jury thinks my work fits in this context and may contribute to widening the definitions of what graphic art can be. It’s really a kind of printing technique I’ve developed, but without a press and with an ever-changing result.

Linus Höj Krantz: “Finding Loopholes in a Medium With Set Rules” text Natalia Muntean Blending alchemical experimentation with graphic art and craftsmanship, Linus Höj Krantz, born in 1989 in Stockholm, Sweden, is an artist whose works explore themes of cycles, escapism, and environmental disruptions, often integrating unconventional techniques with traditional methods. In his latest project, Linus draws inspiration from Arlanda Airport, transforming its logistics and design elements into etched circuit boards, copper engravings, and sculptural objects that connect history with modernity. Discover more about the artist’s innovative approach to printmaking, the impact of being one of the four receivers of the 2024 Ann-Margret Lindell Stipendium, and the importance of creating a dialogue between art and the unnoticed systems that shape our world. Natalia Muntean: Your interest in unconventional methods of printmaking sets you apart. What draws you to challenge traditional boundaries in this medium?Linus Höj Krant: I think perhaps the way I work around these boundaries has a lot to do with my personality. I enjoy haphazardness and a tiny bit of chaoticness, at the same time I crave boundaries and templates. Finding loopholes or possibilities to tweak a medium that has long-set rules and archetypes is just something that suits having that type of mindset. Also, I think it´s a medium that has a lot of potential to conversate with the present and its ways of transmitting images and information. NM: Your work often combines experimental techniques with traditional printmaking. How do you decide which techniques to integrate into a new project?LHK: Accumulating techniques and finding out what works is a long and slow process, I would say. I might pick up a seed of a technique while working on a current project. Then a concept or a site or something that whispers to this technique gets added to the back of my brain and eventually, it becomes the foundation towards new work. For the last ten years, I´ve been travelling a lot by bus and train within the Nordic countries, partially because of studying in Norway, Denmark and Sweden. These constant journeys have made me subconsciously and consciously merge landscapes, energy and logistics with techniques such as electrolytic printmaking, circuit boards and sculpting found material/metal. Usually, I start a project with too many ideas, and as the project develops, I scratch and peel off what doesn´t need to be in it. NM: What does receiving this scholarship mean for you, both personally and professionally, and how do you see it shaping your future as an artist?LHK: I think it means more than a lot. It´s a great encouragement to continue to try new and unwritten paths within my artistic process. Hopefully, it will bring more flexibility for me to spend longer periods on research and grinding new techniques. NM: The stipend celebrates excellence in graphic art. What do you think makes your approach to graphic art unique, and how does it align with the values of this award?LHK: I guess what sets me apart could be that I´m very curious about how rare methods and artistic processes can have a dialogue with what surrounds us but often go unnoticed. Having your antennas both inside the box and outside of it, I guess resonates a lot with the ideas and core values of this incredible grant.

Paul Fägerskiöld: Mapping the Mind through Painting text Sandra Myhrberg In his latest exhibition at Lützengatan, Paul Fägerskiöld unveils a new series of raw, introspective paintings. These works, featuring vertical structures on fields of colour, explore the essence of image-making and the act of painting itself. Using symbolic pillars and shelves, the paintings act as blueprints of a cognitive “mind palace,” where abstract forms transform into recognisable images. Rooted in art history, the series draws from 18th-century Korean Chaekgeori and the Renaissance interplay between Disegno and Colore. Fägerskiöld continues to evolve his visual language, offering a fresh perspective on the relationship between form, colour, and meaning. You work a lot with time and space. Can you elaborate on your view of the present?I don’t know how abstract one should be 🙂 On one level I think of all segments of time as parts of a 4-Dimentional sculpture. Seen from a different perspective all the things we base our experience of the world on, before-after, cause-effect, history-present-future would all form an entity containing all its stages. In other words, the chicken is both egg and hen at the same time, seen from this perspective In a more reality-bound view the present is our experience of time passing. The interface on our journey through space-time. What does your working process look like?Like most things, I work cyclical. And there are many different cycles ongoing at the same time. I constantly collect ideas, do sketches, take photos and reflect on stuff in the studio. Some of those ideas or notes from my notebook hold more than I first thought and after a couple of years they start to connect to other ideas and it becomes necessary to investigate them more. This is done by doing a lot of “bad” paintings and sketches, trying to reach past the initial often to a literal idea. Sometimes there is more. Sometimes I find something along the way, a sketch or an idea that breaks what I had initially intended and opens up for something more interesting. In a later face of that cycle, I start to make choices regarding what that work asks for in terms of scale, presentation, colour etc. And if I ́m working on an upcoming exhibition those choices also relate to the works as a group, what they add to each other, to the exhibition space, to the viewer passing through the space and while doing so moving through different modes of perception. Once the exhibition is up that cycle continues with reflection, finding new questions and points of curiosity and developing the work from where it was presented in the exhibition. Can you describe the materials and techniques you use?Generally I have been using traditional medias for painting such as oil-paint, gesso, graphite, acrylic on linen. But there is no conceptual block in my work, if the work would ask to be done completely different I would follow. In regards to technique, all the bodies of work I have done has asked for their own way of being made, which often has been very difficult to figure out. Some works has been made with brush, some with spray cans pressed in the wrong way. This show has been done only using cloth and paper to rub layers of paint onto the surface and then remove it, leaving thin layers of residue. And the drawing part of the paintings has been made over layers as well, almost carving into the linen using a graphite-pen. In the end, paint has been caught in the valleys made by the drawing, making the lines both graphite and paint. What is your relationship with time?Like most people I’m a mortal human being passing through space time just trying to make sense of it.  I once attended one of your vernissages. There were many layers, and it smelled of paint. Are you often working up to the last minute? How do you decide when a painting is “complete”?Working towards an exhibition is a quite specific experience and process. It has become a point of total focus for me, I constantly make choices and learn what it is I ́m doing while doing it. The presence and the focus often demands unexpected things from me in terms of finishing the works, they often develop exponentially the last weeks leading up to the show, but even if most of the works are done 2 weeks before the exhibition the last 3-4 paintings that arrive to the exhibition might completely change the direction and the focus of the show. A work is finished when it holds its own ground, when it asks no more of me. When there is nothing I could do to make it find itself. Most of the time the paintings are not as I had thought or intended and part of my work is listening to the work and hearing what it asks for. An unfinished or failed work works the same way. What drives your artistic practice?I have for as long as I can remember asked myself questions about transformation and change, trying to make sense of how we create meaning and understanding in the world we live in. Those questions still drive my practice. But on a less cerebral level curiosity, fear, joy and necessity/urgency drive what I do. When something really intrigues me, it tends to be a good direction to go towards, if it at the same time feels a bit scary and fun it tends to be something worth investigating. Or when something feels completely necessary to do even if the arguments are lacking. Your latest works are described as “cognition maps” or “blueprints of a mind palace.” How do you see the relationship between your inner thoughts and the visual language in your paintings?In some regard this show is the result of work I have done over the last two years, thinking about what it would look like painting the creative process itself. But hopefully its more archetypal than just my inner thoughts. I think of the different bodies of work in the show as investigating different modes of cognition. It started with thinking about Matisse’s painting the Red Studio and asking myself how it would work if I painted it. Making a painting of my actual studio felt completely irrelevant, but making a painting of the “mind-space” where