UPCOMING. 30/03–06/05 2023. Joakim Allgulander returns to Sweden after ten years with his first solo show with the gallery. We are happy to present the artist’s latest work – mostly large paintings created in London and Italy, where the artist currently resides.
Vernissage, Thursday March 30, 5-8 pm in the presence of the artist.
GREEN, BLACK AND BLUE.
At first glance, Allgulander’s works appear to be a type of landscape painting. Upon closer investigation, the viewer comes to the realization that each painting is actually built upon an intricate layered grid system, with the imagery broken up into pixels, dots, or printed colour, thus creating a painting that seems more constructed than actually painted.
I see them just as much as objects or sculptures, even though they are two-dimensional, says Allgulander.
Allgulander’s choice of motives is timeless; a reflective water surface, as in the large painting Moby Dick where white dots create a phenomenon of light and reflection, and the painting Group Chat where thousands of empty speech bubbles form repetitive shadows as a kind of digital impressionism. There is an inherent criticism of civilization built into the works; the seemingly verdant close-ups of plants and gardens are not from nature but from greenhouse environments, a second-hand experience of nature which today is actually most people’s contact with nature.
The human will to organize and systematize also shows itself in Allgulander’s methodology; the templates are often photographs taken by the artist himself, combined with images found on the internet. Images are then edited together digitally and analogically printed, painted, or enlarged on canvas. It is a time-consuming method – a back road to the traditional landscape painting, but which, at the same time, is a more accurate representation of the missing connection we have to, for example, food production and nature.
The title of the exhibition Green Black and Blue, simply refers to the most common colours Allgulander has painted with in these particular works, where there are no shortcuts to create his desired result.
Mixing color and painting has always been as easy as it is difficult throughout the ages; only the approach varies with time and person.
Allgulander moved to London in 2013 where his artistic practice developed. His work was discovered by an international audience, and with exhibitions and art fairs in Hong Kong, Basel, Miami, and New York, Allgulander’s art is now fairly established internationally. Allgulander has also exhibited in his former hometown of London at The Royal Academy of the Arts, and Saatchi Gallery, among others.
Making his serious debut as an artist in 1994 at Olle Olsson-Huset in Solna, as a sculptor and installation artist, Allgulander is perhaps best known to the Swedish public as a graphic artist and has made several sought-after editions of lithographs and prints.
Joakim Allgulander is based today in Perinaldo, a mountain village in northern Italy where the majority of the exhibited works are made. Major exhibitions and commissions in recent years include Right Here Right Now, Saatchi Gallery London (2021), Positions Art Fair, Berlin (2021), E/AB Fair, New York (2021), Untitled Art Fair, Miami Beach (2020), Exile on East Street, Fiumano Clase, London (2020), Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy, London (2020), VOLTA, Basel (2019), Art Central, Hong Kong (2019) and Part 1 & 2 of a large commission for The Dorchester Hotel, London, curated by VISTO Images (2022-3).
Joakim Allgulander (b. 1965) was educated at Konstfack 1986-1989, Öland’s School of Painting 1985-86, and Uppsala University (Visby) 2002-2003.