north room:

In his work, Per Enoksson creates a modern twist on the traditional patterns and motifs of his ancestral heritage. Born and raised in Tärnaby, Sweden into a family working with traditional handicraft, Enoksson’s aesthetic is strongly influenced by the Sami arts intrinsic to this region. This is evident in the two large-scale paintings on view, where the figures, geometric fields, and minimal symmetric shapes of the Sami tradition are abstracted and integrated into contemporary narratives. The ambiguous landscapes that result are imbued with a desultory magic in which contradictorily depicted characters and forms interact.

There is, despite the inherent humor in his work and the cartoon-like quality of some of his renderings, something deeply disturbing about Enoksson’s imagery. The works confront the viewer with discomfiting juxtapositions that illustrate a struggle to create continuity between shifting cultures and inconsonant eras.

Per Enoksson has been included in exhibitions at the Modern Museum in Stockholm, the Art Gallery of Hamilton, Canada, the National Museum for Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, Norway, and the Gallen Kallela Museum, Finland. His work can be seen in the upcoming exhibition, Swedish Family, at the Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art in October 2009. This will be his second solo show with the gallery.