Eva Löfdahl, Masayoshi Oya and Martha Ossowska Persson
7 December 2019—23 February 2020
Minimalist skeleton parts made of wood, magnified hands in watercolour, and ceramic objects in gardens shrouded by darkness. The exhibition year 2019 finishes with a polyphonic presentation, in which three artists show newly produced works that now meet the public for the first time.
The Sten A Olsson Foundation for Research and Culture is an important contributor to culture in Gothenburg. For over twenty years, the Foundation has awarded many training scholarships to talented practitioners in art, music, theatre, dance, literature, design and stage design. The Foundation has also supported many different research and culture projects in Sweden. This year, the Sten A Olsson Culture Scholarship has been awarded to seven cultural practitioners who each receive 300 000 SEK to stimulate their artistic development. An exhibition featuring the artists Eva Löfdahl, Masayoshi Oya and Martha Ossowska Persson, three of the scholars, opens on 7 December. As usual, each artist is represented with several works.
Eva Löfdahl (b 1953 in Gothenburg) has been an important artist in the Swedish art scene since the early 1980s. She chiefly works with sculptures, objects and installations, in which the forms and formats are closely related to the characteristics of the material and the place.
Masayoshi Oya (b 1979) was born in Japan, trained in Japan and in Sweden, and has worked in Gothenburg for many years. In the media of ceramics and with great precision, he creates both practical and artistic pieces as well as sculptures that challenge our preconceptions about what ceramics can be.
Martha Ossowska Persson (b 1983) graduated from the Valand Academy in 2014. She is a painter who works with watercolours in large formats. Her sphere of motifs often includes the body, skin and touch, in which close-ups and magnified details destabilise the relationship between the work and the viewer.
Motivations:
Eva Löfdahl
»Eva Löfdahl’s oeuvre comprises a singular totality in which she both consistently and in varying ways works with objects, sculptures, installations and paintings. Since her debut in the early 1980s, her works have functioned as analytic instruments in a slow, meticulous search, centred on concepts such as constructions, limitations and oppositions. An apparent tranquility often characterises her works, but strong tensions lurk beneath the surface, and an intense questioning of language, orders, systems and hierarchies.
For her significant artistic practice, which has multiple layers of meaning and attentively unites mind and matter, Eva Löfdahl has been awarded the 2019 Scholarship from the Sten A Olsson Foundation for Research and Culture.«
Masayoshi Oya
»With superb technique and a keen awareness of the possibilities of ceramics, Masayoshi Oya creates objects whose pace varies from fast to slow. His ceramics combine a strict formality with painterly and sculptural gestures that add an element of anxiety and contrast. Sharply defined contours of ceramic vessels are posed against wild brushstrokes and parts where thin chunks of clay build up flower-like forms. He stages a fascinating world of things in which the combinations of forms and glazings always seem to be moving toward something novel, never seen before.
For an artistic practice that unites curiosity and sensuality, transforming ceramic vessels into concentrated poetic statements, Masayoshi Oya has been awarded the 2019 Scholarship from the Sten A Olsson Foundation for Research and Culture.«
Martha Ossowska Persson
»In her large format watercolours, Martha Ossowska Persson depicts the human body. Often its appearance is abrupt and unpredictable, at times elusive and mysterious, experienced between the sensual and the melancholic. With a unique sensibility for nuances and details, the artist investigates subjects that are beyond the reach of narratives: existence in terms of the body’s weight and weightlessness, and the physical registration of a changing and vertiginous landscape.
For an artistic practice that combines a dynamic point of view with conceptual depth, and shows the charged relationship between the body and the world, Martha Ossowska Persson has been awarded the 2019 Scholarship from the Sten A Olsson Foundation for Research and Culture.«
