LOKO GALLERY is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition in Japan by Swedish artist Hans Andersson.

Over the years, Anderson has been working with abstract images and sculptural objects using found materials. The artist gives the new history through his long time manual work to objects such as paper bags, plastics, metal scraps and old photo albums abandoned on the streets with their own meanings and history and sublimates them as an artwork. In his carefully structured collages and delicate drawings, you may see process of execution, but actually it is intuitive, not logically assembled, and it is closely related to the artist’ s acts themselves.

Andersson’s working style is both spontaneous and passive. He purposely faces to the materials without having a clear plan, and the artist himself will change along with the works and the environment of working place. His production method, which excludes predictions and semantic interpretation and places an emphasis on purely experiencing the situation, is like meditation, and his works may be a record of a spiritual journey of the artist.

The artist who was influenced by Zen thought, Kitaro Nishida’s philosophy and activity of Mono-ha, had stayed in Japan for a few months in 2017. In this exhibition, 4 meter huge and other paper collage works produced with a new perspective after staying in Japan will be exhibited accompanied by sculptural objects using metal and leather.

There is no title in his works and all previous solo exhibitions including this show. This shows us artist’s intention to encourage viewers to bear away from the words and meanings and to perceive and interpret the works in areas beyond the language.

Marcia Cavalcante writes in Lovtal till intet (Eulogy to Nothingness) on
how the truth value of interpretation must be sought in the very process of understanding,
and that this moment of discovery as such is the focus.
For me, to make art is to attempt to be part of the process of understanding.
It is an experience occurring in a present moment,
where it is always possible to encounter something for the first time.
It is a form of de-creation, in which one refrains from identifying with the previous experiences through
which the world is encountered. This does not mean denying these experiences,
but to not consider them a part of oneself.

– Hans Andersson

ARTIST PROFILE: Hans Andersson