Ragnar Persson
En studie i grått
30.09—29.10.22
Gallery Steinsland Berliner is proud to present En studie i grått, a solo exhibition with new work by Ragnar Persson. This is the Swedish artist’s fourth exhibition with the gallery. On view in the exhibition are works on paper in implemented styles of highly detailed pencil drawings, less contained drawings as well as a new suite of screen-prints.
The selection of works presented in En studie i grått exemplifies the extensiveness of Persson’s practice which is not necessarily intended to simply culminate in the accomplishment of his elegantly executed pencil drawings depicting grey scaled woodlands inhabited by human, animal and mythical beings. These painstakingly precise works are brought to life alongside, and in dialogue with, an enthusiastically consistent sketching habit.
Drawn out on the most casual of papers, often on ripped pages from note- and sketchbooks, the sketches detail the workings of the artist’s surrounding output. Delicately drawn figures (later to be spotted in the landscapes of Persson’s larger works) exist on these pages interspersed with repeated doodles of the artist’s name or designs reminiscent of metal band logos, bringing to mind the filled in margins of a distracted student’s textbook.
The exhibition’s three larger pieces offer invitations into familiar territory, namely the atmospheric landscapes seen in Vitvattnet, Persson’s last exhibition at the gallery. Distinctly Nordic-looking spruce forests are filled with curiously empty-looking cottages and a reoccurring cast of characters including but not limited to horses, snakes and ghostly faces. All drawn out in shades of grey pencil on paper. Persson’s world of drawing is distinctly his. It feels neither safe nor threatening. Both spontaneous and neat, mature in execution yet telling stories reminiscent of fairytales and lore. En studie i grått showcases this dual attitude in the works themselves as well as their allotted presentation, in an exhibition that confirms the artist’s personal joy of drawing, how different modes of expression inform each other and how freedom and limitation interact in the creative process.
Ragnar Persson (b.1980, SE) lives and works in Stockholm. He holds an MFA from Konstfack University of Arts, Craft & Design. Ragnar Persson’s work is represented in several private and public collections, including those of Moderna Museet and the Swedish Public Art Agency.