Tim Van Laere Gallery is pleased to present Myrstackarnas land / Land of Anthills, the first solo show of new and recent works by the celebrated Swedish artist Jockum Nordström at the gallery. This exhibition brings together a rich constellation of Nordström’s intimate collages, evocative pencil drawings, and delicately balanced mobile sculptures.

We have all, at some point, been captivated by an image, moved by its resemblance to something in our memory. Memory is malleable, whimsical and at times tangible. Memory images point to something beyond oblivion. In the case of an artist, this can consist of the inadvertent borrowing of a detail from a certain artwork in the form of a subconscious memory of a composition the artist has once seen. The work is created anew when the composition is reused in the present. It is validated, perhaps as a sign of admiration towards the other artist. Jockum Nordström does a lot of validating in his works. He is especially responsive to everything having to do with Swedish drawing over the ages, spanning from the Swedish historical narratives of the 1700s, to the humorists of the 1800s and the naïveté and down-to-earthness of the 1900s. Nordström’s knowledge offers him a sense of humility, both in the face of the committed approach of his predecessors as well as their unconditional desire to create. A desire that Nordström clearly shares.

His studio is overrun with fragments of memories left behind, in a book, an envelope, a label, an album cover, a drawing, a delicate collage, a fragile sculpture... everything draped in memories, as though it is the memories themselves that have been left behind. Erased. The fragments are then compiled into new images, new memories, where everything has the possibility of taking place once again. Into new events to remember when Nordström by chance passes by something; a building facade, a person, a conversation, an exhibition. Nordström’s world and everyday life is analogue, and social media doesn’t interest him in the least. Rather than directing rage towards the clarifying ones and zeros, Nordström depicts profound human adventures that we can relate to in time and space. A staircase that leads to nowhere. An interrupted conversation. If it indeed is the case that the figures in the drawings have ended their conversation, it is no doubt due to the fact that they no longer encounter each other's gazes. Everything has been said, everything is a memory, everything is the future.

(Text by Carl Fredrik Harleman)