Dio Horia Gallery is pleased to present ‘Kick Off’, an exhibition of new works by Swedish artists Joakim Ojanen & Sunna Hansdóttir.
The two-person show will open following the artists’ residency in Greece (October 2022). The presentation comprises ceramics by Ojanen and paintings by Hansdóttirand marks the first time that the real-life couple are exhibiting together.
Ojanen showcases 7 ceramic sculptures and a large ceramic wall-piece. The artist is a character-maker: his sculptures arise as cartoon-like figures with exaggerated features that at first seem funny and playful but possess layered, nuanced personalities and emotional depth. The artistic process takes part in various stages, sculpting, leaving the works to dry, entering the kiln, coloring and glazing. Living with them for a certain period, their final form finally emerges, in a spiral frame of time, where the past and the present meet and characters that already exist come to materializing once more afresh. Trying to pinpoint the feelings and moments of loneliness, sadness, happiness, cluelessness and so on, Ojanen’s work is a place for memories and ordinary situations — but twisted (some times real twisted), “a place where play is a serious matter and the serious is a matter of play” as quoted by Jakob Ojanen, the artist’s brother. It’s a place for Ojanen to figure out the world and himself.
Ojanen’s work is a place for memories and ordinary situations – but twisted (some times real twisted). It’s a place for Ojanen to figure out the world and himself.
Hansdóttir presents a total of 13 paintings, created out of her craft-knowledge and textile background. While her main interest keeps lying in the possibilities created from the materiality of the canvas for contemporary art practices, this is about a more experimental phase in the artist’s routine, with a new aesthetic dimension. Bringing different skills into her works, with water-based colors filling the canvas and a top oil coat, Hansdóttir’s image world is a combination of recurring figures and colors, such as a brightly vibrating orange or a simple, curly line. In a playful and poetic way, the artist is looking for tension, contrast and peace in different compositions of forms, layers, colors and varied textures — drawing inspiration from silk and linen, to fine weave and rough fibers canvas and Icelandic lava sand, fusing the tradition of painting with her textile craft background, and finding strength in this meeting.
In a playful and poetic way, Sunna Hansdóttir is looking for tension, contrast and peace in different compositions of forms, layers and colors, combining the tradition of painting with her textile craft background, and finding strength in this meeting.
While a two-person show is generally regarded as a fruitful dialogue involving the work of two separate artists, here there’s a somewhat peculiar case. Viewers are invited to experience the show as an entrance to an enticing new space, hand – and mind – crafted by the artists, thoroughly adorned and inhabited by spirited creatures. ‘Kick Off’ marks the couple’s return to working life, following the birth of their first child. Motifs coming from living together go into the artworks. Like mapping the new information flowing from one person to another, ‘Kick Off’ captures a transcendent period in the artists’ journey, involving such complete engagement and absorption that action and awareness merge. Afterall, the flow of life is all about mindset, calling us to embrace the exhilarating and empowering realization that we are but the expression of powerful energies flowing forth into the world. In the meantime, let us get our kicks.
Joakim Ojanen & Sunna Hansdottir: Kick Off
Residency Show
November 03 – December 03, 2022
Dio Horia Acropolis
5 – 7 Lempesi & 16 Porinou St, Acropolis, Athens, 11742
T: +30 2109241382
E: info@diohoria.com
