Known for his simplistic renditions of human and animal forms, which are often compared to folk and outsider art, Swedish artist Jockum Nordström's collages and graphite drawings explore the relationships and feelings of power and desire that accompany life.
Read MoreNordström studied at Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, in Stockholm, Sweden.
Nordström has likened his process to a chain, in which details of an artwork, such as its scale and atmosphere, influence those of its successor. The theatrical scenery of his work derives from both actual and fictional events—memories, observations and fantasies.
Initially trained as a painter, Nordström was drawn to collage for the medium's approach to the act of image making. Whereas his paintings started with compositions, Nordström found that he could begin a collage with simple details—paper-cut figures, created and painted individually—that he then built up into tableaus.
Nordström's collages resemble storyboards with non-linear, sometimes even incomprehensible, narratives. The four pages that make up Sun gonna shine in my back door someday (2014) alternate between an urban setting, featuring figures dressed in Victorian attire, and mountainous landscapes. In one panel, a man in a top-hat raises a stick against a woman and a child, while a figure in a pointed-hat appears to be walking in the air in the right-most page.
Similarly, Nordström's graphite drawings are inhabited by human figures and animals that perform both banal and strange actions. A man lies on the ground in Över sten och trapp/Over stone and steps (2019), as two other figures look on from either side of the steps; in Pantry (2022), a nude woman sits across from a well-dressed man, with an open book between them. Nordström's childlike renditions of the bodies, contrasting with the hard lines of furniture and architecture, add to the deadpan absurdity of the scenes.
Often presented on tall, white pedestals, Nordström's mobile sculptures combine wood, metal and recycled everyday objects with the artist's drawings and collages. Wishing Well (2021), which lent its name to Nordström's solo exhibition Wishing Well at Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp, in 2022, consists of coins and pieces of collage attached to a metal mobile, balanced as a whole by a small pile of coins placed on the sculpture's base.
Nordström considers music an alternative practice to art, one that enables him to collaborate and experiment with others while his studio remains a private experience. The artist has been playing in the band Åhlund & Jockum Nordström since 2007 and has featured musical elements in his exhibitions. In The Anchor Hits the Sand, his solo exhibition at London's David Zwirner in 2019, for example, Nordström's works were accompanied by a soundtrack created in collaboration with his son, musician Rudolf Nordström.
Jockum Nordström is also recognised for his series of children's books, titled 'Sailor och Pekka', about a man and his dog, along with works including Who is Sleeping on My Pillow (2009), a collaboration with his wife, artist Mamma Andersson, and his illustrations for Leo Tolstoy: Fables and Other Stories (2017).
Following his first solo exhibition in 1988, Jockum Nordström has presented his work internationally in solo and group exhibitions.
Solo exhibitions include: Wishing Well, Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp (2022); The Anchor Hits the Sand, David Zwirner, London (2019); Why is Everything a Rag?, Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans (2018); Nordström. All I Have Learned and Forgotten Again, Camden Arts Centre, London, and Lam, Musée d'art contemporain, Lille, France (2013).
Group exhibitions include: The Spring, Gallerie Magnus Karlsson, Stockholm (2022); A Quiet Spring Wanders Through the Apartment, Magasin III Museum for Contemporary Art, Stockholm (2021); Kees Goudzwaard - Jockum Nordström - Bart Stolle - Mircea Suciu, Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp (2019); The Campaign for Art: Modern and Contemporary, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2016); The Bottom Line, S.M.A.K., Ghent (2015); The Drawing Room, Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall, Stockholm (2014).
Sherry Paik | Ocula | 2022
