Untitled, 100 x 70 cm, Mixed media on paper, (oilpastel, drypastel, ink and cloth on paper), 2025

Hans Andersson was born in 1979 in Kalmar, Sweden, and is currently based in Stockholm. He received his MFA from Konstfack – University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm in 2005. This exhibition marks his second solo show at LOKO GALLERY, following his 2019 presentation.
The works shown in 2019 were intricate collages, composed of meticulously cut and assembled heterogeneous materials that evoked fragments of memory. The layered colors did not merely reside on the surface of the material—they emerged as spiritual strata within the pictorial field.
In the current exhibition, Andersson’s work demonstrates a further evolution, resonating with the exhibition space itself. The physicality of materials recedes into the background, while color transcends its role as a purely visual element to become a trace of the act of making—a memory embodied in form. As a result, the contours of the work blur, dissolving into a non-material, spiritual dimension that invites the viewer beyond the visible.

In Andersson’s practice, “color” is not simply a painterly element, but a record of a “field” generated through time, space, and the artist’s embodied presence. We hope you will take this opportunity to encounter and engage in dialogue with the open and resonant world of his work.

I work in mixed media on paper. I use found paper, fabric, oil paint, pigments, shellac, dry pastel, oil pastel, ink, gouache, watercolor, pencil, Tippex, charcoal, and various materials and color experiments. The process is experimental and non-linear.

Sometimes I’ve used scents as benchmarks for the development of the artwork. I have scents in my studio that I smell while working. This has grown organically out of a curious obsession. More recently, I have also started using various recorded sound fragments as similar signposts.
The process and the finished work are equally important, I refer to them as the inside and the outside. The inside (the working process) encompasses the place and the passage of time (stone floor, dust, sun-faded paper, humidity, gestures and imprints from me, myriads of lines, paint, excavation and additions) as well as emotions and events (boredom, sadness, joy, anxiety, infatuation, etc., that trigger my movements). Both the teeming inside and the image are interesting, not least because they exist in parallel and within each other.

The works in this exhibition come from a tidal sweep through my creative process. All of a sudden, boundaries began to shift at a rapid pace. Whereas before I had worked on individual pieces for months or years, now I did it in a day. It came as an explosive force. My previous works were corporeal and very much ‘in the world’ and this new work is more open, ethereal. My previous works were stored energy, these works are traces of released energy.

In relation to how I think about my art work, I have meditated on Jacques Derrida’s way of writing, where he lets the text exemplify itself. I have no titles for exhibitions or individual works; silence opens the works. Art is a portal, a window opened and left open. Man is a vessel through which the spirit breathes.

Hans Andersson

ARTIST PROFILE: Hans Andersson