Jesper Nyrén: Horizons
Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki
March 22 – April 21, 2024
A lingering silence has descended upon Jesper Nyrén’s most recent landscapes. The artist has eliminated all excess detail and stripped down the content to the bare essentials, focusing purely on color, light and materiality. The title of the exhibition refers both to the compositional structure and the content of his landscapes. A horizon is a boundary between two physical spaces, such as that between air and land or sea. A horizon can also suggest geological layers or sediments, or boundaries between historic eras or significant events. A horizon also symbolizes the boundary between what we already know and what we cannot yet perceive.
As in the case of his previous exhibitions, Jesper Nyrén’s paintings draw inspiration from specific places and landscapes in their color scale, quality of light and materiality. Many are based on the scenery of his home island of Björkö in the Stockholm archipelago. His new exhibition also features paintings inspired by places he has visited on his travels, such as Provence in France and Northern Italy, where he recently undertook a pilgrimage following in the footsteps of master artists of past eras.
Jesper Nyrén has now focused on paintings on a smaller scale. The artist says that his paintings take on a more intense character and the details come alive more vividly on a smaller scale. His process has meanwhile grown meditative and less physical. Although his paintings retain their usual monumentality and intensity, their essence has grown airier and more ethereal.
Jesper Nyrén (b. 1979) graduated from the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm in 2007. He has held numerous solo and group exhibitions in Sweden and Norway. He has received prestigious awards such as Marabouparken’s P.A.N.K award in 2008 and the Baertling Scholarship in 2015. Jesper Nyrén has additionally been awarded many public commissions in Sweden.
GALERIE FORSBLOM
Yrjönkatu 22 - 00120 Helsinki
