"Castle Dream"
"I was born in Stockholm Sweden 1972. In1979 my dad got a job in New York so he brought the whole family with him. I lived in New York for 8 years and this had a deep effect on me. After this I moved back to Sweden for one year and then my dad got a new job in Switzerland where I lived for five years and went to high school. When I was a kid my family would go back to Sweden during the summers. There I would usually stay with my grandfather who was a bishop in the Swedish church. He would sometimes speak about the "invisible reality" or the spiritual dimension in life. Me and my brother where real close to him.
"Club Vanitas"
Later I started studying theology and also the psychology of Carl Jung who often wrote about modern man's search for the soul. I just received my bachelors degree in religious science and this has been a long time coming so I am very happy. Old traditional religious art from medieval churches in Sweden inspires me a lot, particularly the art by the painter Albertus Pictor. It was common that interiors of whole churches where painted in a naive style telling both the stories of the bible and other folktales to farmers and others who where not literate in Latin, the language that the bible was written in at that time. I'm often inspired by these old stories but I try to find a modern expression for them.
"I rule"
There is a lot of references in my art to my time growing up in America as well. I usually collect pieces of wood that I draw on and then make large collage-like installations with them. In one way its like I'm putting myself back together over and over again because when I was growing up I felt scattered living all over the world and moving around all the time. I am also heavily inspired by old retro culture like The Twilight Zone episodes with Rod Serling, 50's horror and science fiction films, graffiti art, icon painting, comic books, stand up comedy, burlesque clubs and rockabilly music."
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