Sometimes we lie on our backs and look up at the sky. Then it may happen that we observe a cloud forming in the sky. We follow it with our eyes; how it towers, moves and obscures the sun for a moment. The eye squints to protect the gaze from the bright light that shines through. Karin Ohlin's latest works are a number of drawings in graphite that are based on these moments of cloud contemplation. She calls them "cloud drawings", both to describe what she sees and what she does. 

During the work process, the paper was attached to an MDF board as a support for the drawing itself. After a while, the MDF board also became part of the drawing, as an environment or a context for the creation of the drawing. The meeting and transition between the pure white paper and the drawing – the clouds – and the light brown shifting structure of the MDF board began to integrate. Looking at the “cloud drawings” is like moving your gaze across two completely different but still similar surfaces. The drawings’ clear and convincing rendering of the clouds sharpens your gaze to also study what is happening around, such as how the graphite collects at the edges of the paper and how the scratches and shifts of the MDF board also contribute to the design. Like another form of sky.

Exhibition Afterimage is based on eight “cloud drawings” of varying sizes and a number of complementary works. The exhibition includes ideas and thoughts about design, stemming from notions that have always been present in Karin Ohlin’s artistry. It is about a balance between the concentrated, the object-oriented and the enigmatic openness of form.

Eva-Lotta Holm Flach

A folder has been made for the exhibition with text by Peter Cornell.
> To the folder

Karin Ohlin was born in Lund in 1961 and lives and works in Stockholm. She was educated at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 1995.

Selected solo exhibitions: Galleri Flach, Stockholm, (2013), Uppsala Art Museum (2010). Selected group exhibitions: Samhällsmaskinen, Malmö Art Museum (2016), Minimal, Åmells, Stockholm (2008). Public commissions: Svindelpunkter, KTH, Stockholm (2017) and Instrument, KI, Stockholm (2001). Karin Ohlin is represented at Moderna Museet, the Swedish National Art Council, the Stockholm Art Council, Bonniers Art Collection and private collectors.