Persbo Studio invites one artist a year to create a
sculpture in response to the surrounding environment. The goal is to create a dynamic collection of permanent works that all have unique qualities and artistic expression which reflect contemporary art in Sweden and internationally. Currently this project is funded with our own resources.
Title: At the Gate
Artist: Helene Edgren
Medium: Wood, pine tar
Dimensions: 300 cm x 210 cm
Year: 2013
At the Gate, is a wooden sculpture that takes its inspiration from
a woodcut print in the 1511 edition of Malleus Maleficarum
(Hammer of the Witches in English), a book written by a German
clergyman that aims to prove that witchcraft exists, along with
the procedures for its discovery and punishment.
The woodcut depicts a gate to hell in the form of a demon’s
gaping mouth, beyond which are trapped and tormented souls.
The image describes what believers feared would happen if they
failed to live a righteous Christian life, a belief that also
functioned as an effective means of control.
The piece, At the Gate, is fence-like structure that
metaphorically separates one state from another, it is a
boundary that is not meant to be physically crossed. Once the
threshold is passed over there is no going back, the
consequences bring about a fundamental change that
permanently affects your perspective and how others perceive
you.
At the Gate, is set just within the border of the forest and acts
as a symbolic portal for visitors to walk through and enter the
nature that lies just beyond it.
Incidentally, the title At the Gate, is a nod to the Swedish
death-metal band At the Gates, which unfortunately no longer
exists.
Helene Edgren is a Swedish artist who lives and works in Arlöv.
Edgren’s practice engages with the relationship between the
individual and nature, where nature, above all, is a metaphor for
our drives and desires. How strong is human nature’s
compulsion, how much control do we have over our actions?
The problematic concepts of good and evil are an ever present
part of the topic of our nature which is muddled by human
complexities that constantly provide new gray areas between
these stark divisions.
Edgren earned her MFA from the Malmö Art Academy in 2006.
Her work has been exhibited at Galleri Thomas Wallner in
Malmö, Ystad Konstmuseum, Galleri Signal in Malmö, Galleri
Ping-Pong in Malmö, Galleri 5 in Lund, Galleri Mors Mössa in
Göteborg and the 2005 Istanbul Biennial. Edgren was awarded
the Höga Kusten Cultural Award in 2009 and Malmö City’s
Cultural Award in 2008 and is represented in collections of
Statens Konstråd and Region Skåne.
Title: †33T
Artist: Trygve Luktvasslimo
Medium: Diabase
Dimensions: 200 cm x 60 cm
Year: 2011
The title †33T alludes to the numerological connection between
the artist recently turning 33 and that being the same age that
Jesus died. The engraving on the sculpture translated from
Swedish to English reads, “Lead me to a rock that is higher than
I." The quote comes from Psalm 61:2 of the New Testament. It
also happens to be a favorite of Oprah Winfrey.
This piece was a component of a dense and ambitious project
where Luktvasslimo set the occult within navel-gazing pop
culture in relation to individual perceptions.
†33T materializes the baseless argument and exposes us and
the artist to the rhetoric of mainstream media and contemporary
culture. The project takes on an authoritarian voice which
speaks in tongues; echoes in the chapel; exhausts, motivates
and questions the freedom of choice of the common man.
Luktvasslimo reevaluates trivial gestures and articulates them
with monumental reverberations. †33T does not condemn
manipulation, it allows us to balance on the border between it
and proselytization.
Trygve Luktvasslimo is a Norwegian artist who lives and works
in both Lisbon and Mosjøen, Norway. His work is inspired by
the relationship between the metaphysics of the domestic
sphere and religious processes along with traditional beliefs,
associating social phenomena with the mythic qualities of pop
culture and religion. For further information about the artist
please visit his website: www.trygveluktvasslimo.com
This sculpture holds the honor of being the first work in the
collection of the sculpture park.
