Mollbrinks Gallery

"Rain is in the air" oil on canvas, 50x60 (2024)

About this painting
Extreme weather. Heat, drought, rain and flooding. But since it probably here to stay, shouldn´t we just call it normal weather?

Yes it´s a comment about the environment. Kind of heavy subject. But i like to turn thing around, to make a point. Dare I say with a sense of humor?

If it´s raining umbrellas, what will we take cover under? Maybe nowhere to go? Heavy rain, do we need helmets? Why is there a sunken boat in the left corner?

I like questions...

Abut the artist:
Swedish artist, born 1960 in northern Sweden. Autodidact.

Frank Björklunds debuted as an exhibitor in Östersund in 1985.

The first paintings testified to his admiration for the Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte, who became his great idol. However, Björklund considered that he was a rather clumsy artist, then Dalí was better as a painter. He, on the other hand, could stay awake for two or three days to be able to see dimly, but it's nothing for me, says Björklund.

Björklund's surreal and humorous images cannot be compared to any other Swedish artist. Possibly he feels a certain friendship with GAN, the Swedish surrealist, Gösta Adrian Nilsson, who today is counted among Sweden’s greatest artists from the twentieth century.

Nowadays, Björklund is such a technical virtuoso that he can paint like Caravaggio. Fabrics, shadows and lights, surfaces of all kinds.

He reads lots of books in all sorts of genres, "it fills up the store of ideas", when he wants to relax he plays hard rock.

About his motifs
Frank paints in an idea world, where all the big questions exists. Politics, environment, sex, philosophy and so on. Where and who are we and where are we going.

The painting goes where the idea takes it. Whichever it´s a still life, a landscape or portraying man, the idea rules.

He uses renaissance allegory’s, everyday objects and modern icons to give you clues where the painting is heading.

Because it´s all a journey.

He paints in the surreal tradition with a modern twist.

As Frank says:
- You´ve got to honor your heroes. That´s why he has a mind like Magritte and follows the painting technique of Dali.

DETAILS
Year: conceived in 1971
Height: 179 cm
Material: bronze
Technique: lost wax

DESCRIPTION
As a boy, Dalí loved dressing up, “disguise was one of my strongest passions as a child”. Dalí’s relationship with the world of haute couture began in the 1930’s and lasted throughout his lifetime.

In this sculpture, Dalí pays tribute to figures who influenced his art: Coco Chanel, Elsa Schiaparelli and model Amanda Lear. This remarkable sensual Venus poses in the stance of a supermodel, her head a bouquet of roses. Before her kneels a courtier, a dandy paying homage to his muse. Both figures lean on a staff for support, the staff or crutch a reoccurring Dalinian symbol.

DETAILS
Year :conceived and first cast in 1980
Height: 94 cm
Material: bronze
Technique: lost-wax
References Descharnes: Dalí: The Hard and the Soft, Sculptures & Objects. Eccart, 2004. pg. 244 ref. 631

DESCRIPTION
The image of an elephant carrying an obelisk is portrayed in one of Dalí’s best-known paintings The Temptation of St Anthony (1946). Dalí’s elephants have exaggeratedly long legs which raise them up towards the sky. These thin, multi-jointed legs juxtapose with the heavy body of the elephant. The obelisk alludes to a tiring burden, yet the artist distorts reality making it weightless, an illusion of it almost floating above the saddle. The combination of these contradictory elements create a sense of disarray and metaphysical imbalance that can only exist in a dream-like world.The legs of the elephant originally had claw-like feet during the sculpture’s creation. Doubtful of this element, Beniamino Levi President of the Dalí Universe, approached Dalí to modify it. After initial resistance and with Gala’s support, the feet changed to horses hooves.

DETAILS
Year :conceived in 1977, first cast in 1984
Height: 65cm
Material: bronze
Technique: lost wax process
References Descharnes: Dalí: The Hard and the Soft, Sculptures & Objects. Eccart, 2004. pg. 239 ref. 616


DESCRIPTION
Venus is the goddess of beauty and Dalí pays homage to the female figure and his attraction to female beauty in this sculpture, by adding his own surreal elements. The underlying form in this sculpture is of a classic female torso, to which four Dalinian symbols are added: a soft watch, ants, an egg and a separation of the body into two parts. 

The watch is draped over the neck to give us two opposing messages, that beauty of the flesh is temporary and will vanish, while beauty of art is timeless and eternal. On the clock face the numbers five and eleven are missing, did Dalí wish to indicate the date he was born?

DETAILS
Year :conceived in 1977
Height: 90.5 cm
Material: bronze
Technique: lost-wax
References Descharnes: Dalí: The Hard and the Soft, Sculptures & Objects. Eccart, 2004. pg. 243 ref. 624
 
DESCRIPTION
In 1968 Dalí was commissioned to illustrate an edition of the Alice in Wonderland book. Dalí chose to represent Alice as a girl with a skipping rope, an image which first appeared in his oeuvre in the 1930’s and was used in numerous oil paintings such as Morphological Echo (c.1935). For Dalí, Alice is the eternal girl-child who responds to the confusion of this nonsense world with the naivety and innocence of childhood. Here, Dalí created Alice’s silhouette holding a skipping rope frozen in motion above her head, her hands and hair blossoming into roses, symbolizing feminine beauty and eternal youth. The crutch symbolizes stability, it gives her emotional support, acting as a link back to reality.

DETAILS
Year :conceived in 1979
Height: 38.5 cm
Material: bronze
Technique: lost-wax
References Descharnes: Dalí: The Hard and the Soft, Sculptures & Objects. Eccart, 2004. pg. 248 ref. 639
  
DESCRIPTION
The melting clock is the most recognizable Dalinian image and the artist chose to portray it consistently throughout his lifetime. Dalí became obsessed with the concept of time and used the melted watch image in many of his works. Dalí brings to this sculpture a dynamism, where the clock appears to be literally “dancing”. Unrestrained by the rigid laws of a watch, time, for Dalí, moves to the rhythm of a perpetual dance, speeding up, slowly down, stretching out, liquefying. Some say that Dalí represents in his watches Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity of space and time; the dancing watch illustrating the concept of movement through time. The Dance of Time I is presented alongside Dance of Time II and Dance of Time III.

When the ice and snow melted, the true landscape of Antarctica revealed itself. Mountains and plains, almost like a tundra. With more or less nothing to eat. For a penguin, though fast and gracious in water, walking on land is slow and a bit awkward.

Recognizing this new problem in their lifestyle. Yes, becoming their new normal. This penguin realizes transport is crucial. From the breeding grounds all the way to the ocean. Transporting food up and down the tundra.

Here you see Mr. P. Enguin and his new carrier. It´s a reuse from the fifties.  (A pedal boat/car, environmentally friendly of course. Like all penguins are. Setting an example for us all.

Oil on canvas, 70x80 cm (2024)

Abut the artist:
Swedish artist, born 1960 in northern Sweden. Autodidact.

Frank Björklunds debuted as an exhibitor in Östersund in 1985.

The first paintings testified to his admiration for the Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte, who became his great idol. However, Björklund considered that he was a rather clumsy artist, then Dalí was better as a painter. He, on the other hand, could stay awake for two or three days to be able to see dimly, but it's nothing for me, says Björklund.

Björklund's surreal and humorous images cannot be compared to any other Swedish artist. Possibly he feels a certain friendship with GAN, the Swedish surrealist, Gösta Adrian Nilsson, who today is counted among Sweden’s greatest artists from the twentieth century.

Nowadays, Björklund is such a technical virtuoso that he can paint like Caravaggio. Fabrics, shadows and lights, surfaces of all kinds.

He reads lots of books in all sorts of genres, "it fills up the store of ideas", when he wants to relax he plays hard rock.

About his motifs
Frank paints in an idea world, where all the big questions exists. Politics, environment, sex, philosophy and so on. Where and who are we and where are we going.

The painting goes where the idea takes it. Whichever it´s a still life, a landscape or portraying man, the idea rules.

He uses renaissance allegory’s, everyday objects and modern icons to give you clues where the painting is heading.

Because it´s all a journey.

He paints in the surreal tradition with a modern twist.

As Frank says:
- You´ve got to honor your heroes. That´s why he has a mind like Magritte and follows the painting technique of Dali.

Colored pencil and india ink on Washi (Japanese paper). 22x31 cm

Reutersvärd painted these on his train journeys between Lund and Stockholm. Always freehand and without a ruler.

Oscar Reutersvärd (1915 – 2002) was a Swedish graphic artist, who in 1934 pioneered the art of 3D drawings that may initially appear feasible yet cannot be physically constructed. He is sometimes described as "the father of the impossible figure"

Biography
Born on 29 November 1915 in Stockholm, Sweden, he reportedly suffered from dyslexia and had difficulty estimating the distance and size of objects. But his family was artistic, and encouraged his painting and sculpture efforts at home.

Reutersvärd's originality appeared early in his career—at the age of 18. In 1934, the school student created a figure, the “impossible triangle”, composed of a series of cubes in perspective. "The triangle at first seems like the simple geometrical shape with which all schoolchildren are familiar. However, as the eye tries to follow its outlines, the triangle abruptly becomes a dizzying experience as its bottom link plays havoc with the brain's intuitive knowledge of physical laws." according to World of Mathematics, 2006, published by Thomson Gale. This very triangle was chosen in 1982 by the government of Sweden as the subject of a 25 öre postage stamp. In 1937, he created his first impossible stairs, and the concept that would lead to the impossible fork. Subsequently, he focused on academics. In 1958, he read the now classic article by Lionel and Roger Penrose on impossible objects, which included the triangle and staircase that the British father and son team had developed independently. One artist inspired by the Penrose article was M.C. Escher—who produced two prints of impossible buildings in 1961 and 1962. The application of the concepts he originated over 20 years prior, by serious mathematicians and artists, rekindled Reutersvärd's interest. By 1963, he had created several new and original impossible figures and was featured by a gallery in Stockholm.

He would create his figures with India ink on Japanese rice paper, drawing freehand, without a ruler or any mechanical device. He generally used  Japense perspective", where all parallel lines remain parallel and do not meet at points of visual convergence." The shaky lines, often exacerbated by working on the ten hour train ride between Stockholm and Lund, is obvious in some of his pictures. Figures were frequently colored with Japanese colored chalk. In comparing his work to that of the much more famous artist of the impossible, M.C. Escher, it can be observed that Escher builds inhabited worlds around impossible objects, whereas Reutersvärd's designs generally consist of pure geometric forms.

Reutersvärd produced more than 2,500 figures. In the late 1960s, several books were published featuring his work, and he attracted a following, with many international gallery exhibitions. Through the 1980s and 1990s, he continued to develop impossible figures, filling many notebooks. Finally, in the mid 1990s, his work was prominently commissioned for several public buildings in Sweden, and the National Museum of Stockholm and Museum of Modern Art of Stockholm both displayed his work.

Today both mathematicians and psychologists use his drawings as templates for studying visual perception.

In addition to his development of impossible figures, he was a designer of many public works in Sweden, including large sculptures, mazes and architectural features.

Mollbrinks Gallery has been commissioned by Oscar Reutersvärd's family to exhibit Reutersvärd's artistic creations. A selection of his impossible figures will be on display at our stand.

Provenance:Oscar Reutersvärd's estate.

New York City Legend
Bronze, on black stone. Signed and numbered edition of 49. + 3 Épreuve d’artiste (E.A.)
Foundry Perseo SA, Fonderie d’art, Mendrisio, Switzerland.
Diameter 27 cm, height incl stone base 40 cm. Stone base 20x20x8 cm.
In addition to the edition also 3 monumental sizes. (currently one casted), Location: Union Square, Oct. 2023 - Nov. 2024. Current location: North 5th Pier and Park, 105 River Street, Brooklyn, NY.