Öppet 29/4 – 4/6 alla dagar kl. 10:00 – 18:00, Välkomna!

HENRIK JOHANSSON – From heart to hand to canvas

Henrik Johansson calls his new exhibition “Abo imo pectore” – “With all my heart”. And, sure enough, he paints with his heart. It makes his hand that holds the brushes and his eyes that choose the colors to listen to the thoughts and obey the impulses that do not have their roots in an academy of art, but just in his heart. In the joy of painting. In the joy of being able to paint.

As it is the joy of heart that rules the art of Henrik Johansson it would be easy to believe that he is one of the so called “Sunday painters”, also known as “the Sacred Heart painters”. The nickname “Sunday painters” goes back to the naïve masters from the years around the former turn of the century, self-taught artists who only were free to paint on Sundays. Among them mainly the Parisian Costums officer Henri Rousseau (1844-1902), who also belonged to those who showed the way into surrealism, the multifaceted reality that hides behind the immediately visible world.

But even if the heart also has guided Henrik Johansson to realities that many times seem to be multifaceted och filled with mystery, it would of course be wrong to call him a naïve artist. That is naïve meaning untrained and childish. It is true that he calls himself an autodidact and by that places himself on the same level as the naïve painters, but he has not been left totally to himself. As a child Henrik Johansson belonged to those kids who always drawn, sketched and painted. When he later should start high school, the choice was easy: it became the craft line with art as the first choice. There he met the artist Thomas Holm, a figurative expressionist with a good eye to classic art. Holm quickly realized the young student’s ability of to achieve and reproduce a motif with an apparently intuitive look for anatomical abbreviations, perspective shifts and nuanced dialogs between light and shadow. He gave his adept a good advice: Study Caravaggio! All that Henrik Johansson was aiming for, this Roman baroque artist had driven to perfection, only 400 years earlier.

And Henrik Johansson followed his advice. Studied Michelangelo da Caravaggio (1571-1610) whose dramatic life and equally dramatic paintings created uproar already in his own time. With him disappeared the Renaissance’s refinement and love for exquisite details. Caravaggio, a homosexual rowdy and fighter with a very short fuse, told in sweeping, yet blood-dripping brush-strokes about violence. About beheadings and crucifixions. With a dramatic headlight light, called tenebroso, he focused the essentials in each work and put the remains in half-light and shadows. He painted flirty androgynous angels. Boys from the streets were used as models for the young Bacchus. Dirty foot soles were placed literally before the eyes of officiating priests when they were exposed on altar paintings. In prolongation Henrik Johansson also adopted two of Caravaggio’s later, contemporary, admirers: the Norwegian Odd Nerdrum and the Dane Michael Kvium, who both have a preference for realistically painted absurdities with domicile in the more obscure outlaying lands of the baroque.

When Henrik Johansson last exhibited at Galleri Final in the beginning of 2014, masterly performed replicas of paintings by Caravaggio were used as backgrounds for different, most often surrealistic, events. In the new exhibition the Italian master only plays a minor role. Fragments from some of his most famous paintings can be seen, but most often as an underlying dimension. As a sort of reference to a zero where all started, in any case for Henrik Johansson. In layer by layer where faces, bodies, parts of bodies, parts of clothes partly overlaps each other, Henrik Johansson plays with our fantasy and our perception. Also here it deals about fragments that are glued together to collage with use of illusory painted pieces of yellow masking tape. He paints a story. An incoherent story and we have to fill in the words ourselves. He gives us a clue, the word HOPE. It reappears as a mantra in quite a lot of works. But hope of what? The answer is with the viewer.

It is like this Henrik Johansson works. No answers are given in beforehand. The paintings are omitted for the viewer’s mindsets, which turns them into barometers. They can swing between hope and despair, between tangible reality and untouchable dreams. Not even the titles of the paintings are to any help. Most often they have no names at all and the fantasy wanders helpless between interpretations that disappear before they were transformed into words. In other paintings Latin quotes confuse. “Dum vivimus, vivamus” – “While we live, let us live”. Let us live with different identities in an all-time changing life where the only move that counts is the move of the body. Or…? And the paint “Persona non grata” – a person not desired. To whom does it refer? To the labourer who in a painting by Caravaggio is helping to rise the cross of St. Peter? To the well-dressed man with a whipped-away face? To the tattooed girl whose body-language is so rejective? The question marks accumulate. As already mentioned, the art of Henrik Johansson leaves no answers, in return it trigs the curiosity.

Britte Montigny

4 March – 9 April 2017

BERTIL WARNOLF

The artist Bertil Warnolf, living and working in Malmoe, is an illusionist. Ever since his debut at Galerie Holm almost half a century ago, he has enchanted his growing fan base with seemingly photographically precise depictions of objects we usually find around us: a burnt matchstick. Small birds with forest colored plumage (such as can be seen in every bush in a park). A fish. A simple wooden chair. But the illusion scrapes, creates uneasiness. The paintings’ eye deceptive perfection is disturbed by illogical elements. The sense of escapism is interrupted. The fragile matchstick is subjected to undue pressure.  Deprived of the hiding places offered by the bushes, the birds perform equilibristic balance acts. The fish is not only humanized, it is also carefully covered in bandages. Disturbed by “not being more” than a wooden chair it changes shape as a chameleon… The paintings lack of logic houses a surrealistic dimension which clearly indicates that their task is not only to entertain by making the boundary between reality and fiction liquid, but that they also have something to say about the actual reality we live in.  About our earth as fragile as the burnt matchstick. About the birds whose habitat is decreasing for each day that goes by. About the fishes which are torn to pieces by garbage and suffocated by plastic. About the intolerance with everything that is dull and boring. About the accelerating demands of changeability. Behind the naked and coloristically gentle compositions in the paintings by Bertil Warnolf there is hidden a deep seriousness and a great commitment with our time and our earth.

Britte Montigny

BERTIL WARNOLF

Malmökonstnären Bertil Warnolf är illusionist. Ända sedan debuten på Galleri Holm för snart ett halvt sekel sedan har han förtrollat sin växande skara fans med till synes fotografiskt exakta avbildningar av föremål vi oftast finner runt omkring oss: en avbränd tändsticka. Småfåglar med skogsfärgade fjäderdräkter (sådana som kan ses i varje parkbuskage). En fisk. En enkel trästol. Men illusionen skaver, oroar. Målningarnas ögonbedrägliga perfektion rubbas av ologiska skeenden. Känslan av verklighetsflykt kommer av sig. Den sköra tändstickan utsätts för orimliga påfrestningar. Berövade buskagens gömställen utför småfåglarna ekvilibristiska balansakter. Fisken har inte bara förmänskligade drag, den är dessutom omsorgsfullt bandagerad. Trästolen ändrar skepnad likt en kameleont i olust över att ”bara” vara en trästol… I målningarnas bristande logik finns en surreell dimension som entydigt signalerar att deras uppgift inte endast är att roa genom att göra gränsen mellan verklighet och fiktion flytande, utan att de också har något att säga om den faktiska verklighet vi lever i. Om vår jord, lika ömtålig som den avbrända tändstickan. Om fåglarna vars habitat minskar dag för dag. Om fiskarna som skärs sönder av avfall och kvävs av plast. Om ofördragsamheten med det alldagliga. Om tidsaccelerationens krav på ständig föränderlighet. Bakom Bertil Warnolfs avskalade och koloristiskt varsamma kompositioner döljer sig ett djup allvar och ett stort engagemang med vår tid och vår jord.

Britte Montigny

Recension av Carolina Söderholm Sydsvenskan 11 Mars 2017

17 November – 18 December 2016

Thomas Wågström – In Heaven on Earth

In 2013, photographer Thomas Wågström, based in Stockholm, visited Fabriken Bästekille where he exhibited a selection of his photos and multi-award winning photo-books.

Now he has returned to Scania and Galleri Final with the exhibition “In Heaven on Earth”. A universal dimension but also a summary of the photo-book trilogy “All that is in Heaven” (2012), “Necks” (2014) and “On Earth” (2015). Photos that stop me in my tracks, enticing me to enter them, or rather to enter the trilogy’s different motifs.

Consequently, I do as Thomas Wågström does and look up at the sky. Some clouds are hunting each other. They seem to be having fun. For a couple of seconds my eyes follow them, but soon they have forever disappeared from my horizon, my memory and my life. In the photos by Thomas Wågström, I retrieve my memories of the clouds, of the stories they told, the images they created.

Once again, I do as Thomas Wågström does and I see a neck in front of me. There is nothing beautiful to see. It is aged. Pale. Wrinkled with coarse pores and stray hairs. Anonymous. Uninteresting. But seen through the lens of Thomas Wågströms camera, the necks lose their anonymity. Suddenly they become interesting. Living and almost beautiful. Worth exploring.

I live in a house built steadfast to the ground. When I get the chance to look at the world as birds do, I’m happy to take it. I do as Thomas Wågström does and allow myself a moment of fascination when I notice the proportional displacements caused by the birds perspective (imagine looking up at the

paintings on a ceiling of a 16th century Roman church, but the other way around). But the

moment is short, the distractions too many and soon my eyes are looking in other directions. And as a matter of fact, there is – as far as I can see – nothing special to see. Thomas Wågströms photos tell the contrary.

The “every day” view, the one that notices the abovementioned clouds, necks and proportional displacements, is less about seeing and more about understanding. Continuous realisations that intuitively provide orientation in daily life. It takes more for those negligible motifs and perspective anomalies to get stuck on the retina, as if they were engraved on a copper plate. Something more.

It is this “something more” that Thomas Wågström has the ability to bring out in his exhibitions and photo books. Eight so far. The first, “The Inner Side of Earnest” was edited in 1994. It depicted a group of young men during their rigorous training for the Swedish Coastal Rangers. The camera froze the movements, choked the sound. Only silence remained and a nakedness accentuated, not only by the imagery, reduced to a minimum, but also by the absence of colours. In the black and white pictures, there is nothing that softens, nothing that distracts. Nothing but the rare and compelling beauty of the different shades of grey. The beauty in what is small, in what is almost ugly, in the trivial every day. A suggestive force urges the eyes to see what Thomas Wågström sees through a camera lens as sensitive as a seismograph.

“The Inner Side of Earnest” might be the first of Thomas Wågströms photo books but it is a mature piece of art, created by an artist who had already found his calling. A road that winds away through an unexplored world in black and white. During the years, the nature of this world has changed from the Coastal Ranger’s laborious existence to a shabby boxer that retreats to abandoned cellars, to his grandfather’s workshop on an isolated island in the archipelago of Stockholm and further to clouds, necks and the view from his own balcony on the 13^th floor of an apartment building in Stockholm. Thomas Wågströms photos allow me to travel through these worlds. And they teach me how to stop. How to see. How to look upwards. Downwards. All around. A lesson to absorb and to take with you.

 Britte Montigny

Thomas Wågström  – In Heaven on Earth

Sommaren 2013 visade stockholmsbaserade fotografen Thomas Wågström ett urval av sina fotografier och flerfaldigt prisbelönade fotoböcker i Fabriken Bästekille på Österlen.

Nu har han vänt åter till Skåne och Galleri Final med utställningen ”In Heaven on Earth”. I himlen på jorden. I himlen så ock på jorden. En alltomfattande dimension men också en sammanfattning av fotoboktrilogin ”Allt som är i himlen” (2012), ”Nackar” (2014) och ”På Jorden” (2015). Fotografierna får mig att stanna upp och tvingar mig bildligt talat att gå in i dem, eller snarare, in i trilogins motivkretsar.

Jag gör som Thomas Wågström och tittar upp mot himlen. Där leker några molntappar tafatt. De ser ut att ha rätt kul. Jag följer dem med blicken några sekunder, men sedan är de för alltid försvunna ur min horisont, mitt minne och mitt liv. Och även jag har legat på rygg på en sommaräng och läst in en hel zoologiskt trädgård i sommarmolnen. Kvar i minnet finns inte molnens formationer, bara doften av ängens gulmåra och känslan av välbefinnande. I Thomas Wågströms foton återfinner jag mina molnminnen.

Jag gör som Thomas Wågström och ser en nacke framför mig. Jag kan inte se något vackert i den. Den är halvgammal, höstblek. Veckig med grova porer och några förlupna hårstrån. Anonym. Ointressant. Men sedda genom Thomas Wågströms kameralins förlorar nackarna sin anonymitet. Blir plötsligt intressanta. Levande och nästan vackra. Värda att utforska.

Jag bor i ett hus med ständig markkontakt. När jag någon gång får chansen att se på världen med fåglars blick tar jag den gärna. Gör som Thomas Wågström och låter mig för ett ögonblick fascineras av fågelperspektivets proportionsförskjutningar (ungefär som när man tittar upp på  takmålningarna i en romersk 1600-talskyrka, fast tvärtom). Men ögonblicket är kort, distraktionerna många

och ögonen söker sig snart åt annat håll. Det finns ju- såvitt jag kan se – egentligen inget speciellt att se. Thomas Wågströms foton berättar om motsatsen.

Det vardagligliga seendet, det som registrerar till exempel ovannämnda moln, nackar och fågel-perspektivets förskjutningar, handlar egentligen mindre om att se och mer om att registrera. Fortlöpande registreringar som sker automatiskt som en slags orienteringshjälp i tillvaron. Det krävs något mer för att dessa i sig försumbara motiv och perspektiviska anomalier ska fastna på näthinnan, etsa sig fast som vore de graverade på en kopparplåt. Något mer.

Det är detta ”något mer” som Thomas Wågström har förmågan att förmedla med sina utställningar och fotoböcker. Åtta har de blivit genom åren. Den första, ”På insidan av allvaret”, kom ut 1994 och skildrade ett gäng unga grabbar under den tuffa utbildningen till kustjägare. Kameran frös rörelserna, kvävde ljudet. Kvar fanns bara tystnad och en hudlös nakenhet som accentuerades inte bara av bildspråket som reducerats till ett minimum utan också av frånvaron av färger. I de svartvita bilderna finns inget som mildrar, inget som distraherar. Inget utom en sällsam, betvingande skönhet förmedlad av gråskalans schatteringar. Skönheten i det lilla, i det nästan fula, i det banalt alldagliga. En suggererande kraft som tvingar ögonen att se det som Thomas Wågström ser genom ett kameraobjektiv lika känsligt som en seismograf.

”På insidan av allvaret” må ha varit Thomas Wågströms första fotobok men den var ett fullgånget konstverk skapat av en konstnär som redan funnit sin väg. En väg som vindlade sig genom en outforskad värld i svart och vitt. Under åren har den skiftat karaktär från kustjägarnas slitsamma vardag till sunkiga boxarmiljöer i övergivna källarlokaler, till farfaderns snickarbod på en isolerad ö i Stockholms skärgård och vidare till moln, nackar och utsikten från den egna balkongen på trettonde våningen i ett hus någonstans i Stockholm. Thomas Wågströms fotografier gör mig till medresenär på resan genom dessa världar. Men de lär mig också att stanna upp och se. Uppåt. Nedåt. Runtomkring. En lärdom att ta till sig, att ta med sig.

Britte Montigny

24 september kl. 18.00-24.00

Malmö Gallerinatt lördagen 24 september kl. 18.00-24.00

Performance av konstnären och musikern Damali Young under hela kvällen.
My concept this evening is “Echoes from another world.”
I grew up in NYC a midst a music and art explosion.
In my style as an Artist and musician this perhaps can be felt.
My sound and style that is steeped in visual aesthetic fuses pop with the avant-garde
when this balance is met, then there is something harmonic happening, something that is very Damali.

Damali Young var Galleri Finals debutant 2016.

POP UP Galleri 31
Retrospectiv Photo exhibition with Ralph Nykvist

2 July – 21 August 2016

Galleri Final is closed 6/6 – 21/9. Welcome to our summerexhibition at FABRIKEN Bästekille.