Drawing and Sculpture
I construct spaces for people. This is equally true in both, my drawings and my sculptures. My drawings are representational and based on found architectural imagery. Each drawing opens up an illusionistic space. You, as the viewer, are welcome to enter it in your mind. My sculptures are abstract structures and at the same time serve as functional objects. As benches and platforms, they invite you to inhabit their space.
During the last two years I have gone through a phase of intense experimentation with color and painting. In sculpture and drawing the painting is fluid – its outcome fleeting and unpredictable. While the rigid geometries of the architecture in the source images of the drawings, or in the construction of the sculptures speak of permanence and universality, my painting process speaks of the ‘here and now’, an individual act in a given moment.
In my drawings the ink is at times dutifully reproducing the image and at other times openly rebelling against it. I want to re-create a place of permanence (architecture) as a momentary stage of your memories, dreams, or imagination. Attempting to enter this space in your mind, you have to penetrate layers of color and ink. Held in suspense, you are simultaneously inside and looking from the outside in.
The geometric shapes of the paper have a similar effect: Rather than functioning as conventional frames for an image, their specific angles draw connections from the representational space to the physical space around it. These works speak about their architectural surroundings as much as they speak about the space depicted in their imagery. To emphasize this experience, in an exhibition these works are shown unframed, directly pinned to the wall.
Approaching my sculptures, you are allowed to sit, lie or climb on them. This shift of your perspective is central: Conceived as functional objects, my sculptures exist in the same space that you inhabit. Simultaneously you enter their abstract space. My goal is– for a moment – to transform the given physical space you are in into a utopian place. You step out of your specific reality and become part of the artwork.
For me art is fundamentally social. The space in my work becomes alive, when the viewer enters it. I believe in art as a place for people.
Björn Meyer–Ebrecht, March 2021