Qbox is pleased to present “Back and Forth”, a group exhibition of works on paper by emerging and established artists, namely Kelli Connell, Anna Kleberg, Ioannis Koliopoulos, Matts Leiderstam, Tracey Moffatt, Pavlos Nikolakopoulos and, Jockum Nordström.

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“Back and Forth” borrows the title from Anna Kleberg’s series of photographs and presents a selection of works that deal with space and dominance. The very idea of Europe is in itself a dislocation, a nomadic horizon which responds differently to the shifting perspectives and desires of its inhabitants. As the vast majority is not satisfied by the current developments in politics and by the current configuration of society in our world, there is urgency of creating a “space for life” that overrides dominant mainstream distinctions.

 

Kelli Connell‘s work (b. 1974 Oklahoma City, US) is a representation of the duality of the self in regards to decisions about intimate relationships, family, belief systems and lifestyle options. Polarities of identity such as the masculine and feminine psyche, the irrational and rational self, the exterior and interior self, the motivated and resigned self are portrayed. Connell uses digital photography and she manipulates her negatives in Adobe Photoshop in order to “construct realities” which come from happenings that she has experienced personally, witnessed in public or seen on TV. For her, a “believable” situation is not that different from accepting any photograph as an object of truth, or by creating a story about two people seen hanging out, laughing, or quarreling in a restaurant.

 

Anna Kleberg (b. 1970, lives in Stockholm, SE) thinks of various ways of using the space for her photographs and films. In her B/W series of photographs entitled “Back and Forth” Kleberg depicts people for the first time and she uses analogue camera. These photographs are based on a woman holding, balancing and being surrounded by boxes, paper and other material. With references to happenings and performance art, this series shows the artist’s new approach to the creative process.

 

Matts Leiderstam’s (b. 1956 Gothenburg, SE) photograph After Image (Pair of Portrait Groups of Members of the Society of Dilettanti), 2010 comes from a large body of work entitled “After Image”. The work in the show depicts the inner pages of a book that refers to one of the oldest clubs in England –founded in 1732– that started as a dining club which also sponsored the study of ancient Greek and Roman art.

 

Leiderstam’s work often originates in his personal visual experiences of historical paintings, which he detaches from their normative context within collections or archives and investigates from a contemporary point of view. His method is simultaneously the artist’s and the scholar’s and he lets these attitudes mix and affect one another. Using a wide array of artistic mediums, such as painting, installation and photo, he unveils the limitations of our habitual patterns of interpretation and exposes details and subtle codes revealing issues of gender, sexuality and class.

 

Jockum Nordström’s (b. 1963 Stockholm, SE) collages, watercolors and drawings feel improvisational but rich in detail. His imaginative environments appear as fantastical settings populated with unique figures, animals, musical instruments, architecture, vegetation, furniture and other props, all varying in scale and composition. Similarly perplexing, his pencil drawings of rural landscapes and contemporary cityscapes are characterized by an inconsistent sense of scale, different perspectives, and a mixture of present-day and period trends.

 

Pavlos Nikolakopoulos (b. 1973 Athens, GR) employs an array of techniques; prominent among them are the practices of drawing and installation. His most recent work is comprised of large paintings on metal sheets and small drawings on paper. Nikolakopoulos works with various materials –oil, graphite, acrylic and ink among others- where large areas of white dominate his works on paper. Many of his compositions could be realized in the space as large-scale installations where the aura of the objects and the subtle equilibrium would interrupt the emptiness of the space.

 

Tracey Moffatt (b. 1960 Brisbane, AU) is a photographer and filmmaker who deliberately constructs her photographs while many of her images look like film stills, appearing as if something is actually happening or it is about to happen, or has taken place. Her concern with power relations is demonstrated in the series Scarred for Life, which juxtaposes photographs of children with text, mimicking the layout of “Life” magazine in 1960s. The wizard of Oz, 1954 (1994) shows a young girl and a man sitting on a chair in front of a fireplace. The text beneath reads “He was playing Dorothy in the school’s production of the Wizard of Oz. His father got angry at him for getting dressed too early.” With her dreamlike images Moffatt creates a space in which actors can embody wider sexual, political and social conflicts.

 

Ioannis Koliopoulos (b. 1986 Athens, GR) is a collagist and sculptor. His series of collages "Collect & Collective Memory", 2013-present, is created using material from the artist’s significant personal collection of photography, found post-cards and miscellaneous stereotypical imagery (for example taken from encyclopedias or manuals) that represent either personal memories of individuals or collective memories, historical events, studying different groups of people. Koliopoulos uses the technique of collage to create poetic meeting points between commonplace imagery. Sometimes in order to comment on the conflict between the natural and the cultural history of man and at other times to attempt the blurring of the line between personal recollection and the collective memory.

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