• Jim Thorell

    Written by Art & Culture

    Stockholm artist Jim Thorell uses an impressionistic use of color to drive the composition. Like landscapes, as if viewed from above, below, forwards and backwards at once, Jim completely disintegrates the horizon line, while still portraying landscape as the subject with strong horizontal movements across the canvas. Thorell’s visual worlds question the perceptible reality and open up references to symbolism, painting of the early 20th century, and psychedelic textures of the 1970s, which he translates into his own contemporary visual language.

    What are you working on right now? /Tell us about your exhibition during Stockholm Art Week?
    I am right now in the process of getting out of the woods with these paintings we are exhibiting in may, the subway doves I call them.

    What inspired you to become an artist, and how has your artistic journey evolved over time?
    For me personally it was never a choice, it’s just a way to make sense of some of my personal traits and behavior.

    What is your creative process like, and how do you approach developing new ideas and concepts for your work?
    I just paint and draw without a plan or idea, over time one thing after another fall out of view and in the end I’m left with images that hopefully have opened up cracks and crevices that I want to explore further in new images. On and on it goes.

    Can you tell me about a specific artwork or series of works that are particularly meaningful to you and why?
    I’m not particularly sentimental with my work, but the series I made for the 2020 show Vinden at Loyal was made during so much emotional upheaval both personal and collectively. I think artists myself included are like antennas and when we are not transmitting we get caught up in our own narratives too much. So these works are a good example of going with the larger motion.

    What do you think of Stockholm as an art city?
    I love Stockholm. I love the complex, passionate relationship with creativity here. It’s very idealistic and real yet in stark contrast with our inherent ambition to create this glamorous golden projection of ourselves.

    Do you have a favorite Swedish Artist?
    Duda Bebek, Magnus Karlsson will show her at market art fair in may.

    Do you have a favorite bar or restaurant in Stockholm?
    Resto Tengu, it’s always worth a visit.

  • Jesper Nyrén

    Written by Art & Culture

    Jesper Nyrén explores in his paintings how color and texture create spatiality, and how the experience of a landscape can form new spaces in painting. In the visually rich and tactile surfaces of the paintings, we can become involved in a nature with both our gaze and our bodies. The compositions seem to consist of building blocks that support and reinforce each other. Each building block has its own color tone and weight, and together they form a structure that is equally parts light and architecture. Jesper Nyrén was born in 1979 and studied at the Royal Institute of Art from 2002-2007. He lives and works in Stockholm.

    What are you working on right now? Tell us about your exhibition during Stockholm Art Week?
    My exhibition during Stockholm art week is at Teatergrillen. It consists of paintings on canvas and paper. Right now I am working with an exhibition that will take place in Bohusläns museum in the summer (together with Katarina Löfström) and a commissioned work for a subway station where I work with ceramics.

    What inspired you to become an artist, and how has your artistic journey evolved over time?
    I always loved painting and drawing and this thing of being absorbed in that private, slow process. I think that over the years I have come to concentrate more and more on the most fundamental elements of that process - the materials and color themselves, scale, composition and atmosphere

    What is your creative process like, and how do you approach developing new ideas and concepts for your work?
    I work with different places in mind. To try and recreate a light or an atmosphere that I have experienced but through color and relations rather than figuration. I work with a group of paintings at a time. Before I start to work on the actual paintings there’s a lot of sketching and trying different ideas. And then as I start painting almost all of those ideas fail. So I have to work my way back to something. It’s a long process of changing and adjusting and going over everything many times. It is that long and slow process that I want. To spend time painting.

    Can you tell me about a specific artwork or series of works that are particularly meaningful to you and why?
    I have made a few works called ”Notes”. They consist of many paintings and sometimes also photographs that are hung in a long line. The separate parts are almost monochrome but are painted in very different techniques, with different materials and tempo and so forth. Then I choose which parts will be included and in which order. It’s like modular paintings that can be changed and rearranged infinitely and also be composed in relation to the space where they are installed. I like that because it´s a very intuitive and experimental process.

    What do you think of Stockholm as an art city?
    It’s great! A lot of good exhibitions to see and a nice and familiar atmosphere

    Do you have a favorite Swedish Artist?
    Barbro Östlihn

    Do you have a favorite bar or restaurant in Stockholm?
    Teatergrillen of course :)

  • Affordable Art

    Written by Natalia Muntean by Art & Culture

    Stockholm Affordable Art Fair 2023: A preview of what's to come
    “I see them in my dreams. I dream a lot,” says Fredrik Sologub, known as Dive, about his paintings and creative process. He stumbled into painting eight years ago after a party and hasn't stopped since. “Nowadays, my art is much less curated and more raw and authentic,” he says about his evolution.
    Dive is one of the artists whose work will be featured at the upcoming Affordable Art Fair in Stockholm, with his painting adorning the event's poster. The Stockholm fair, now in its 11th edition, will run from October 4th to 8th, 2023, at Nacka Strandsmässan. It will showcase thousands of contemporary artworks from over 60 hand-picked local and international galleries. This year's fair, called Follow your art, emphasizes love and humanity - something needed in these times and something that art can help express.
    Among the artists showcasing their art this year are Mimmi Hammar, contemporary artist, Yoyo Nasty, artist and illustrator, and Erik Batsberg, multidisciplinary artist working in interior design, sculpture, and painting. In addition, Sigrfrid Billgren, designer, artist and the son of Swedish artist and writer Ernst Billgren, will also display his art at the fair.
    The first Affordable Art Fair took place in Battersea Park in 1999. It has now spread to ten cities around the world, welcoming over 185,000 art lovers each year to explore affordable artwork crafted by emerging and established artists.
    Poster: DIVE, 'Cottoncandy Volcano'

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