Fredrik Hofwander (SWE) - Stene Projects

Fredrik Hofwander (SWE)
www.fredrikhofwander.com

Introduction

Take My Hand and let your eye be caressed by the graphite, which, like watered silk and polished steel, creates seductive surfaces. The thin lines are so close that they become hard to distinguish. Above the dark valleys of graphite the blank paper appears to rise as white banks. This is a sublime graphite painting, serious and playful at the same time. Light floods through the images, in the grey -shimmering haze in which the particles of the air seem to be attached to the granularity of the graphite, as well as in the silk - black fire - lit works. However, the light is imaginary – over - exposed, illuminated, spotlighted. It takes us into the burning focus of the works, into other worlds. We are carefully guided into different environments through openings, windows, doors or roads lined by trees or buildings. The suggestive comfort of the pine forest and the subtle stillness of the city are illusions, like documents of our time. The indeterminate and the dissolved become reflections and counter - images that play with our vision. A snowy owl regards us calmly and quietly from its vantage point on a fence. Silently it gazes downwards, and the perspective is reversed. Who is watching what? Who is watched by whom? The figures that populate the images are immobile. The snowy owl, however, captures my attention and I find it difficult to take my eyes off it. In some of the images, Fredrik Hofwander has introduced pictorial elements that assume the character of emblems. They may be thought of as decoration but they are also comments that create a distance to the otherwise illustrative expression of the works. This is communication on several levels and suddenly we are faced with the fact that we have to create meaning ourselves. Every work is a world in itself, with a very special presence. You may remain a viewer but you may also choose to enter into them with your own experience, in order, perhaps, to come out on the other side. Or you will stay there – stuck in the physical materiality of the graphite – eternally engrossed. I, for one, am dazed and want more. / Annika Gunnarsson

High lighted by Art in America

Fredrik Hofwander VOLTA New York, March 211

Your future, our clutter. 2011
80X120cm, exl framing, graphite on paper

Twilight at Carbon Lake, 2011
(Harry Martinsson series, VOLTA NY)

Pink Moon, 2011
(Harry Martinsson series, VOLTA NY)

The Subatomic Heart of it, 2011
(Harry Martinsson series, VOLTA NY)

Black Forest Gateau, 2011
(Harry Martinsson series, VOLTA NY)

Haninge Konsthall
(Feb - Mar 2011)

Med ett supertunt blyertsstfit avbildar Fredrik Hofwander olika miljöer, ofta offentliga och många gånger utan människor. En civilisation som genom den tecknade bilden blir till en metafor för inre mänsklighet.

Till utställningen i Haninge konsthall har Fredrik Hofwander gjort ett nytt verk med det legendariska Ultra-huset som motiv. Genom hela 1980-talet strömmade unga människor till Handen för att lyssna till punkband som Ebba Grön, KSMB och Tant Strul. Under ett decennium skrevs svenska musikhistoria i den gula trävillan som fick ett våldsamt slut genom en aktion dör huset brändes ner 20 augusti 1988.

Drömmar om rosor och eld, 2011
90X128cm, graphite on paper