Ellen Hedberg (Sweden)
Residencey Janurary - February - March 2006

Sponsored by

My artworks stems from the everyday world. Actual and practical life is complex and puzzles me. What I am after is something that is odd and familiar at the same time. The material that I have in front of me leads the way. What they can or can't do and what they are capable of becoming when put together is what brings me to the next step. I twist and turn in a process of trial and error. I like to see myself as a cook or a choreographer in the studio. Fabric, pillow stuffing, plastic, strings, sawdust or plaster are things that work for me. I am not interested in them acting as facts, so I make sure that I cement the piece just before it becomes an answer. I once had a dog that pretended he had not found the treats that I had hid for him and would go on sniffing. My search is not about finding an answer to what I am looking for, more what I end up coming upon during my search; or the sculptures themselves have ended up somewhere they have not intended and they must rethink the whole situation. Impossible possibilities that broaden myself and allow me to explore beyond my own capabilities.

Images

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Essay

Happenchance and Other Things Discarded Along the Road: New Work by Swedish Artist Ellen Hedberg

Ellen Hedberg is an observer. She looks at stuff, any stuff. Hedberg finds beauty in the discarded and overlooked detritus of our daily lives: trash strewn along the sides of highways, packing boxes left by back doors, broken bottles in parking lots. As a visiting artist at Raid Projects' International Residency Program, Hedberg has spent the past three-months exploring Los Angeles sitting in traffic shifting gears as her leg cramps and looking at the neon glamour wilderness of one-stop shopping, totally foreign in her homeland of Sweden. Hedberg is a native of Stockholm, but now lives in the village of Glamminge settled in the seventeenth century on Oland, a resort island in the Baltic Sea connected to the mainland as recently as the seventies. Quiet characterizes this remote farming village with its rolling hills and glowing northern light, until the late summer state mandated holiday when visitors from around Sweden invade the serene peacefulness of the island. Hedberg's home is a place where one walks past centuries old stone buildings through forests to the sea. It is this cultural heritage of walking and looking that has influenced Hedberg' s process-oriented practice.
Hedberg collects this thrash she sees along the road and other unseemly places. She gives it a home in her studio, heightening and extending its presence by showcasing the trash as she found it or including it in an assemblage. She creates abstract landscapes meant to engage the viewer by their multi-textured qualities, a tension that is enhanced by her use of ephemeral found objects juxtaposed with memorializing them in plaster casts. Thematically her work playfully employs dry-humor to explore a dialectical relationship between the ideas of reconstructing memories through tragic yet comic recollections, repetitive and absurd actions, and ritual behavior undermined by entropy. Her work evokes reminiscences of places that seem familiar, yet whose realities have faded slowly over time. Nonetheless, Hedberg's work suggests enough sense of place to enable the extrapolation of possible narratives. This slippage of place elicits both feelings of psychological and physical alienation caused by a sense of displacement, while still welcoming viewers to enjoy the precarious ground. Hedberg's work creates relationships among these disparate ideas and states of consciousness, presenting a humorous and somber reflection on human foibles.
Hedberg's work is continuously in process as she fusses and rearranges it, the materials deteriorate, or an open door creates a gust of wind and chaos in her world of things. Her embracing and embellishing the abject may be off-putting to some as it skirts the periphery of acceptable taste, but this is the beauty of Hedberg' s work. Yucky stuff can be lovely given a nurturing home. And if you don't like it at first, Hedberg is behind you with her dustpan and broom sweeping up and adjusting her stuff....

Jennifer Vanderpool Los Angeles 2006

Biography

BORN
1967 Stockholm, Sweden

EDUCATION
1999 MFA. Royal academy of arts, Stockholm, Sweden
1996 Myndlista og hantverkskoli Island Reykjavik,Arts

GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1996 Myndlista og hantverkskoli Islands. ,
1998 Varutstallning konstakademin.
1998 Hammarby.
1999 Var utstallning Konstakademin.
1998 Reflexion, Svartsjo slott
1999Ung generation, Vandringsutstallning
1999 Avgangselever, Edsviks Konsthogskolan

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1999 Galleri Mejan
2002 Bild Husets Galleri
2005 Uddenbergska Nordingska stiftelsens Konstnarsbeloning

PUBLICATIONS
1999 Mitt-i Sollentuna.10 aug
2002 Dagens Nyheter.28 jun
2005 Barrometerrn .30 sep
2005 Ostra smaland. 15 okt
2005 Olandsblade. 4 okt

AWARDS AND GRANTS
2005 Uddenbergska Nordinska stiftelsens
1999 Ax-son Johnssons resestipendium
1999 Axel Hirschs fond
1996 Nordplus stipendium