Gallery VER presents

Eugene Delacroix taught me
how to understand colour harmony

Carl Michael Von Hausswolff
Torbjorn Johansson

Curator: Josef Ng

January 7 – February 5, 2011

Gallery VER
194, Tanao Road 
Bovonnivet, Phra Nakhon, Bangkok
Tue – Sat 1pm – 7pm

Opening Reception: Friday, January 7, 6.30 pm.

Exhibition Background
Harmony exists in the space between two different mechanisms.  While Carl Michael Von Hausswolff’s practice oscillates between the creation of sonic experimentation and contextual strategy, Torbjorn Johansson has shown a sustained fascination with the natural wonders of light and colour spectrums.  Together in this exhibition, they expose and exploit the mechanics of colour. The exhibition is colour as focus, colour as a medium, and colour as an experience.

Eugene Delacroix taught me
how to understand colour harmony addresses certain dynamics where simple gestures suggest an alteration and a politicization of temporal and spatial conditions inherent in the work, and between the artwork and the viewer. This is manifested both in the content and in the formal structure of the work.

Johansson plays with the notion of colour as a decisive factor in our perception of the realities that surrounds us. It is the “open” relationship among his works that creates an environment in which to hold a dialogue with the architecture of the gallery; to engage the process where it is difficult to determine where the work ends and another begins.

Johansson’s works are characterized by a sense of playfulness, humour and social involvement. They focus on local situations, concrete materials and forms, while providing a platform for translating his visual entities into a vast collage of compelling imagery. With drips of paint, blobs turn into paintings. Video projection, familiar objects metamorphose and reappear, embodied in configurations that allow us to view them from a new perspective. The artist will also create site-specific installations to link the outside world with the interior spaces, with the natural elements, and its structure through colour.

In Hausswolff’s ongoing “Red” series, the artist uses photography not as an act of documentation, but rather as a surface on which he activates spaces and loads them with various meanings. For many years, Hausswolff has continued to explore the possibility of exposing different architectural and topographical settings using high-voltage red light. By photographing different settings, the image itself, or rather its subject, emanates from the means by which it is conveyed.

In this exhibition, even though the photographs offer no reference other than the viewer´s own, the illuminating images takes on an installation dimension which leads the two-dimensionality of the printed matter to create a dialogue with the three-dimensionality of the gallery. Hassuwolff’s audio frequencies texture the gallery as a sonic structure as well.

Collaborating closely, both artists present a creation of unique colouristic composition.

Artist Profiles

 

 

Torbjorn Johansson (b.1959) lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden.

A graduated of the Royal University College of Fine Arts, Johansson creates site-specific installations, sculptural works, paintings and video. He works primarily on the gravity of light and colour projections which cause movement and tensions that affect our visual perception. He has worked with experts in paint companies and expanded the boundaries of different paint products’ usability. Johansson’s principal mode of operation is to work with the properties of colour from an analytic aspect: he reshapes it as light, let it take different shapes, and fill its surfaces with an impressive resourcefulness.

Besides many commissions, Johansson has participated in exhibitions at PS1, W139, and Ospace, Tokyo, as well as many solo exhibitions since 1995.