Wetterling Gallery | Love Lundell; Orfeus Källare | Stockholm | Aug 18 – Sept 24
August 18 – September 24, 2022
Love Lundell; Orfeus Källare
Wetterling Gallery
In-Person Viewing:
Kungsträdgården 3, Stockholm, Sweden
Virtual Viewing:
https://www.wetterlinggallery.com/exhibitions/wg-116
Opening Reception, August 18, 5 – 8 pm
Wetterling Gallery proudly presents Love Lundell’s fourth solo exhibition at the gallery. In Orfeus Källare, a new suite of oil paintings, where Lundell’s significant figurative imagery is mixed with, for the artist, new abstract motifs is presented. Opening Reception will take place on Thursday, August 18 from 5 – 8 pm. Welcome!
Love Lundell’s artistry moves in an illusory and mysterious dream world where surreal and ordinary everyday elements intertwine. Through a constant collection of images, Lundell has created an extensive image bank where everything from real estate photographs to subcultural Pinterest-accounts, icons and logos are represented. He uses these fragments to create collages, taking the images out of their context and lets them go through a painterly process. The results are complex motifs in multitudes of layers where new worlds, places and stories emerge.
When the pandemic caused by the Covid-19 virus hit its culmen, Lundell’s thoughts were drawn to the tragic fate of the Austro-Hungarian artist Egon Schiele. Hundred years earlier the artist, along with his wife and child, tragically died of the Spanish Flu. With a fear of facing the same fate, Lundell let his thoughts wander and, like previous exhibitions, it was precisely there among the daydreams that the inspiration for the exhibition Orfeus Källare emerged. Brainstorming led to the fictional place Hotel Elefanten, which later gave birth to the idea of embodying Orfeus Källare, a long-closed bar in the heart of Stockholm. In the bar’s glory days it was a foggy, crowded and remote place to those who didn’t know about it. The motifs in the exhibition depict fictional people who may have all found this bar as their refuge. Composed of diffused snippets of images, these figures appear as fragmented reflections of our contemporary society. The abstract motifs with mixed fields of strong colors and patterns create psychedelic cut outs that recall landscapes and tapestry or quilts.
Love Lundell was born in Stockholm in 1981 and attended Trondheim Academy of Fine Art, Norway. Recent exhibitions include Värmlands museum, Karlstad, Göteborgs Konstförening, Gothenburg and Teckningmuseet I Laholm, Laholm. In 2016 he did a residency at Sommer Frische Kunst in Bad Gastein, Austria. Lundell is represented in collections by the Public Art Agency Sweden, The Stockholm County Council, Nordea’s Art Association, and Katrineholm Municipality. He lives and works in Stockholm.
