Website

http://www.robertjohansson.net

College / University

The National Academy of Fine Art, Oslo, Norway + exchange at Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna, Austria

Program / Degree

Fine Art

Graduation

May 30, 2004

Member type

Artist

If you're an artist, what kind of art do you make?

Drawing, Installation, Performance, Photography, Printmaking, Sculpture, Video

I am...

a 37 year old Swedish artist, based in Oslo, Norway.

About my artwork

My works revolves around different kinds of myths and hearsays, and their correlations with control, slump and ephemerality. The threads of investigation are processed and witnessed through do-it-yourself practices, individual stories and humour.

I have made several works that refer to fitness culture. By exploring the social status and stamina of the body, the works reveal the gap that traditionally separates culture and man as a natural creature. I choose to work with a variety of media, such as drawing, sculpture, photography and performance.

The commission Inaugura at HarborArts Boston Shipyard Gallery was finished October 2011. The work, a wooden relief, connects the 19th century scientific drawings of Ernst Haeckel with a composition referring to the structure of a cross section of the human eye.

In 2010 I took part in the group show Taking Down Heaven at the fantastic Alma Löv Museum in the Swedish countryside. My work there had its starting point in a bastardous offbreed from the Norse mythological horse Sleipnir. Since the installation was in a glass house, plants and flowers grew up there during the summer.

Together with Jan Hakon Erichsen I had exhibitions in Tromsø (NO) and Copenhagen (DK), Molde (NO) and Trondheim (NO) in 2010. These shows were part of a series of installations made up by site-specific wall drawings, sculptures, photos and videos. The dream of returning to primary values and the frustration in the impossibility within that wish, set the backdrop for the somewhat passive/aggressive works.

Previous shows include Värmlands Museum in Karlstad (SE), Nos fables at SP Gallery in Stockholm (SE), 3rd Beijing International Art Biennale (CH), Sweet Punch: Recent Nordic Video (NZ) and ARS 06 at Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki (FI).

Centre of the artworld:

nowhere and everywhere, another city