Henrik Samuelsson

Henrik Samuelsson has regularly exhibited solo as well as participated in numerous group shows. In selection: The Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Stockholm; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Galerie Laurent Godin, Paris; Galleri Flach, Stockholm; Färgfabriken, Stockholm; Thielska galleriet, Stockholm; Royal College of Art, London; Reykjavik Art Museum; Centre International d'art contemporain, Château de Carros, Nice; Meilahti Art Museum, Helsinki; Henie Onstads Kunstsenter, Oslo; Centre PasquArt, Biel; La Maison Rouge, Paris.

There is something strange about the empty architectural spaces in Henrik Samuelsson’s recent paintings. Take Refugium I for instance: a flat and frontal, symmetrical composition where a staircase framed by walls, leads up to a large window from which a hard white light shines, leaving the surrounding wall darkly backlit. There is no trace of human life or activity. Instead: a sense of silence and stillness, even mystery. The light in the window is like that of a film screen where no image has been projected. Is there nothing out there? Only sky? The two paintings, Untold and None are wider than the others, close to a cinemascope ratio. In None, a window in the painting echoes the shape of the canvas. As in many of the paintings, the space is divided in a symmetrical way.

Knowing that the paintings were made during the pandemic makes it easier to view them as meditations on a post-apocalyptic kind of emptiness, tinged with a sense of melancholy. A refugium is a place where an almost extinct species has managed to survive. For Samuelsson, his studio was a refugium during the uncertain days of the pandemic. A peaceful place. A place for contemplation.

Samuelsson’s images are carefully constructed from systems of proportions and colour theories. You don’t have to know the principles of these systems to get the impression that they are there – systems underlying the construction of an image – not the depiction of something in the real world. They are utopias in the etymological sense of the word, “non-places”, although not necessarily ideal places. They could also be seen as dystopias.

Refugium III depicts an architecture that could be a temple or some kind of monument, or a tomb. At least it seems to have a symbolic, perhaps religious, non-utilitarian function.

Like in a painting by Piero della Francesca, the architecture with the disciplined employment of perspective and the patterns of shapes and colours make them close to abstract art. Not least the floor tiles in perspective are a motive that the artists share. Between abstraction and realism, it could be a stage for a theatrical scene. In Piero della Francescas Flagellation of Christ (ca 1455-65), Christ and his tormentors are somewhat strangely in the background, framed by classical architecture in strict perspective. The renaissance inventions of oil painting and perspective enabled a realism that denied the flat surface of the painting, turning the painting into a window through which one could see a scene, a landscape, another world. Samuelsson’s paintings, where so much of the surface depict flat walls, are also reminiscent of a minimalist painter like Barbro Östhlin. In this way, he is exploring both the fundamentals of painting and existential questions that the empty spaces inspire.

Magnus af Petersens