Artist statement
Organic motifs and paper objects line up like puzzles that need to be solved. Drawings built up in series together form a fantasy world that can very well expand indefinitely. In this invented universe there are traces of recurring movements, made in one try to find structure in ongoing chaos. Hands as if with patience and a little obsession created a mapping of the unknown.
I work with two- and three-dimensional drawings and sewing. With watercolor, marker and thread on paper I portray fictional landscapes and invented objects. The works change perspective between the astronomical and the microscopic, always with paper as a basis. A drawing can at the same time be a satellite image seen from space as one transection of a cell. Depending on the properties of the paper; lumpy, hard-pressed or folded, glued, reinforced or transparent, both the work process and the result are affected.
I am mainly interested in geology and biology. Remote places such as seabeds, islands and glaciers, but also the body’s internal organs and processes. The method is repetitive but the lines of the pencil and the stitches of the thread are not predetermined by one sketch but is often decided as the work takes shape. Like an excavation, I work slowly form and stories. I see myself as drawing that line; the drawn, sewn or the one embedded in the paper is central to the artistry. The line is what joins together the shapes or pattern of a finished work of art
With delicate paper, thin lines, hazy color fields and fragile threads that alone hold together forms, I want to create an enigmatic and ephemeral atmosphere. A desire to invite people to get close and dwell on the details, as if the works will soon blow away or fade away.
More about Johanna
Johanna Ljungberg operates in Mölndal outside Gothenburg. She is educated at Pernbys Painter’s school and later Art College. Her artistry primarily revolves around experimental drawing and the different conditions of the paper. At Ålgården, she shows one mixture of new and previous works with a focus on repetition as a method.