Matter in Resonance
Rebecka Öhrström Kann
November 2022 - January 2023 | Elastic Arts, Chicago IL
Images Courtesy of Rebecka Öhrström Kann
Installation View: Matter in Resonance at Elastic Arts, 2022
Gallery Photos by Ricardo Adame
Matter in Resonance presents a series of kaleidoscopic photomontages by Chicago based photographer Rebecka Öhrström Kann. Öhrström Kann’s photo-based practice applies methods from the disciplines of collage, textiles, and installation art to reveal the conventionally static photographic image as a dynamic space in flux. Inspired by the turn-of-the-century textile designs of the William Morris Company; the artis instills their compositions with undulating pattern and rhythm to evoke the perception of movement. Through the interplay of formal elements of texture, form, and color, the photomontages impart viewers with a sensory experience.
Each piece is the result of a careful process requiring hours of preparation and manual manipulation inside the artist’s home studio. They first begin by preparing froze blocks of ice encasing organic materials at times sourced from the artist’s own compost bin. Flower petals, egg shells, and fruit rinds are suspended in ice, spilling outward onto the surface of the mirror as it melts. They photograph countless iterations of the same still life, knowing that they will only select a small number that contain the ideal arrangement of elements. Öhrström Kann then prints and slices the photographs, ranging from free-form organic shapes to tightly controlled silhouettes of flowers or plant stems, assembling the cuttings to create densely layered compositions.
The artist compares the process of crafting their photomontages to that of the decomposition undergone by the organic materials they photograph. They explain, “I’m interested in the point at which something which was once familiar is abstracted to the extent that it becomes entirely unrecognizable; breaking into smaller and smaller pieces of itself until it becomes something distinct.”
The exaggerated scale and extreme close-up of the subject allows viewers to peer at each intently as if through a microscope, rewarding both passive and active looking. Such extreme perspective at once reveals and conceals the true nature of the subject through the illusion of abstraction. Transforming what was once mundane into uncanny microcosms.
Rebecka Öhrström Kann is a Swedish photographer and art historian based in Chicago, Illinois. They received dual BA’s in BA in Art History and Photography from Columbia College Chicago in May 2022. Öhrström Kann’s work has been exhibited at Midwest arts spaces including Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL, Fulton Street Collective, Chicago, IL, and Public Space One, Iowa City, IA.
Each piece is the result of a careful process requiring hours of preparation and manual manipulation inside the artist’s home studio. They first begin by preparing froze blocks of ice encasing organic materials at times sourced from the artist’s own compost bin. Flower petals, egg shells, and fruit rinds are suspended in ice, spilling outward onto the surface of the mirror as it melts. They photograph countless iterations of the same still life, knowing that they will only select a small number that contain the ideal arrangement of elements. Öhrström Kann then prints and slices the photographs, ranging from free-form organic shapes to tightly controlled silhouettes of flowers or plant stems, assembling the cuttings to create densely layered compositions.
The artist compares the process of crafting their photomontages to that of the decomposition undergone by the organic materials they photograph. They explain, “I’m interested in the point at which something which was once familiar is abstracted to the extent that it becomes entirely unrecognizable; breaking into smaller and smaller pieces of itself until it becomes something distinct.”
The exaggerated scale and extreme close-up of the subject allows viewers to peer at each intently as if through a microscope, rewarding both passive and active looking. Such extreme perspective at once reveals and conceals the true nature of the subject through the illusion of abstraction. Transforming what was once mundane into uncanny microcosms.
Rebecka Öhrström Kann is a Swedish photographer and art historian based in Chicago, Illinois. They received dual BA’s in BA in Art History and Photography from Columbia College Chicago in May 2022. Öhrström Kann’s work has been exhibited at Midwest arts spaces including Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL, Fulton Street Collective, Chicago, IL, and Public Space One, Iowa City, IA.