Lena Johansson - Taking the Long Way: Stockholm

Andréhn-Schiptjenko proudly presents Lena Johansson’s first solo show in Stockholm. The opening takes place on Saturday, February 19th 5-8 p.m.

The starting point for Lena Johansson’s paintings is photographs from fashion and lifestyle magazines. She takes an interest in these images of desire, their function and wide possibility of interpretation. The motifs she chooses tempt her in different ways. It can be a colour, a face, an expression, a light or something repulsive. Through her paintings she explores what happens when the fashion world’s outlook on people and its strict preconceived notions of what is permitted and beautiful, meets the art world’s often just as strict notions of how painting should look and what it represents. According to Lena Johansson, painting at its best holds an enormous passion and touches people with its profound recognition value. The title of the show alludes to the transformation of a photographic image to a painted one and the long way it implies to, through painting, filter these images through ones private vision.

In the show at Andréhn-Schiptjenko, the paintings will be presented in a specially constructed room and will be arranged so that they make up their own story. On the outside of the construction an image is projected and, in a depression in the floor, there will be a model of a pool with coloured water, reflecting the paintings and the walls. The room within the room will be there to envelop the works and intensify their story.

Lena Johansson graduated from Malmö Art Academy in 2007.