Fluid Time - Katarina Andersson, Per Kesselmar, Jason Martin & Per Mårtensson

22/8 - 28/9 Preview 22/8 4-8 pm

The group show Fluid Time presents different starting points that all aims to slow down our viewing and perception of the artworks on display.

The painting El Capitan, 2014 by Jason Martin, displays the most visible direct brushstrokes and handling of paint onto the surface of the work, in the exhibition it sets the tone in the first room of the gallery. The paintings black velour surface absorbs the light and the painted surface reflects the light that hits the work. On closer inspection it looks almost like a cast rather than made with a brush/palette knife. The works surface still looks wet and fragile, and implies that it is still in flux and even moldable. 

Per Mårtensson presents a monochrome canvas Untitled (watching paint dry), 2019 that originate in a real surface, and at the same time represents the handling of one of the elements that makes up the painting, a pictorial representation of the actual paint drying in the surface of the painting. A canvas with an image still in the process of being finished and we stand in front of the work as if we are invited in to witness the process of making it.

Per Kesselmar work on aluminium, the paintings executed with a rubber roller to create thin layers of oil paint onto the metallic surface, sometimes up to 50 layers. At times they appear to drift apart and create a surface that at times is hard to focus on, the layers of paint almost float on top of each other. They radiate and glow, the serial aspect of the new works highlights Kesselmars ongoing investigation. The edges of the painting is a frame for the center as much as the center is radiating towards us and towards the edge of the painting. 

Katarina Anderssons small canvas Oro, 2018 only 24 x 20 cm is painted in egg-tempera and is in the same way as Kesselmar layered but the difference in surface and paint, presents us with a different approach and viewing. The painting seems to show a set of walls and light falling into the painting, which also reference the space and surface the painting is hung on. We become aware of the light and the color it cast on to the wall surrounding the painting as much as the walls surrounding the painting. The title is a key and an obstacle at the same time, to only focus on the emotional aspect of Oro (Worry in english) leads us too much away from the viewing of the work. Oro is also the pendulum in a large floor based clock, that used to be common Swedish homes as a status symbol from the beginning of the 1800th century. The idea of the painting and its surface as a pendulum in constant movement within a set space, takes us back to the title of the show Fluid Time.

The show aims to present the viewer with a set of paintings that makes us reflect on the process of making as much as of viewing art. The slowing down of the viewer in a time where a lot of viewing and experiencing of art is so fast that time almost becomes as fluid as paint in its canister or tube. By finding ways to truly experience and look at works, we can also understand much more of the intentions of the artists that made them.

Ola Gustafsson
Stockholm, August 2019