Robert Johansson

Tankeplass 2, Vinstra, 2025

In collaboration with Jenny Ueland

Innlandet fylkeskommune/ county council

Saturnia pavonia, 2024

Narvik helsehus/ UNN- Universitetssykehuset Nord Norge

4 stairs

wall drawing/ painting, reliefs in wood and acrylic 1, film

Art consultant: Mesén

Photos: Robert Johansson, Willem Mathlener

Farväl till min förlorade popularitet (Farewell to my fading popularity)

poem by Gustaf Fröding, 1892

Installation with epoxy, metal threads and wood

part of the the show 28 June- 9 September 2023

I skogen

Alsters herrgård (mansion), Karlstad, SE

Gustaf Fröding memorial site

Joint production between Karlstad municipality & Konstfrämjandet Värmland

Supported by OCA Norway

FARVÄL TILL MIN ”FÖRSVINNANDE POPULARITET”!

Ack fly ej, försvinnande

popularitet!,

jag älskar dig, brinnande het!

Min själs älskarinna,

vi skall du försvinna

så snart för en stackars poet?

Jag minns ditt förfriskande

skratt vid mitt bord

och kärlekens viskande ord!

Du spådde mig ära

och titlar att bära

och namn, som gick vitt över jord.

Jag log i mustaschernas

mjugg och var glad

vid tanken på gagernas rad

och våningar fina,

där speglarne skina

bland tavlor och blommor och blad.

Jag drömde en lysande lovsångarlön

hos kvinnornas mysande kön,

om kyss och buketter

och möten i nätter,

när månen gick blek över sjön.

Jag såg mig bli broder med byråkratin

i skummande floder med vin

och sjunga vid fester

bland guldsmidda gäster

i kapp med min vän Tammelin.

Mitt hopp blev allt starkare;

stundom har hänt

att högställde sparkare spänt

att deras klienter,

så snart som det spänt är,

har flugit i höjden, är känt.

Jag såg permissionerna

smidda med gull

och log mot galonerna

-lull!

Jag drömde mig skäras

i träsnitt och äras

för titlars och penningars skull.

Jag såg vid den glindrande

framtidens bryn

en stjärna, en tindrande syn,

och skön att betrakta

hon nalkades sakta

och föll till mitt hjärta ur skyn.

Då svek du, försvinnande popularitet!

Med tårfloden rinnande het

i mina mustascher,

jag ser mina gager

välsigna en annan poet.

Min apokalyptiska dröm fick en stöt

och nu med egyptiska nöt,

de magra som svälja,

mig drömmarne kvälja

de tugga mitt rykte till gröt.

De tugga det gnisslande, tvefalt itu

-de äro idisslande ju

de sväljt mina stjärnor,

min lycka hos tärnor

och allt - de egyptiska sju.

Farväl då; koketta och

flyktiga dam,

i glas vill jag sätta och ram

din bild, älskarinna,

och sen vill jag finna

en ann som är mer monogam!

Commission for Tromsø municipality, 2022

Sommerlyst barne- & avlastningsboliger

Photos; Monica Takvam/ Robert Johansson

5 works in:

pyrography, iridescent paint, ink, laqcuer

1 work in collaboration with Jenny Ueland Studio:

cnc-milled hand rail in oak, pyrography, laqcuer

Sediment, 2022-

Collages of ink drawing, marbled paper with burnt frame

1-2 Sediment- Apis mellifica, 30 x 40 cm

3 Sediment- Bombus lapidarius, 40x 30 cm

4-6 Sediment- Syrphus ribesii, 30 x 40 cm

7-8 Sediment- Vespa crabro, 40 x 30 cm

9-10 Sediment- Philantus triangulum, 40 x 30 cm

"We all have our own wandering stories whether they are small or big. We wander physically and we wander in thought. We wander by our own will or because of situations and surroundings require it of us." K.Freyr

Gesamtkunstwerk

Collaboration with Kamilla Freyr & Per Gunnar Eeg Tverbakk at Theodor Kittelsen´s Lauvlia, Buskerudmuseet

2022

Designer: Ulf Verner Carlsson

Photo 1,-2, 6-11: Nicklas Ross Lello

Ground level stuccos/ Stuckaturer i marknivå

Konstfrämjandet i Värmland, Kolonin, Arvika, SE, 2022

Installation with 100 relief works

pyrography, plaster, acrylic 1, ink, pigment, laqcuer

Commission for Bergen municipality

at Holen skole, Laksevåg, 2021

pyrography, ink, laqcuer

relief in wood and acrylic 1

Photo: Øyvind Klakegg/ Linda Soh Trengereid/ Grethe Unstad/ Robert Johanssonn

Commission for Tromsø municipality

at Fergevegen omsorgsboliger, 2021

5 drawings UV-printed on film, mounted on windows

Commission for Nye Moss municipality

Hoppern skole, Jeløya

5 areas

pyrography, gold paint, relief, laqcuer

Photo: Marius Hauge/ Robert Johansson

KLIMALAB, Nobel Peace Center, Oslo, NO

May 2019-January 2020

Collaboration with Jan Hakon Erichsen

Curators:

Kine Lillestrøm & Erik Kaspartu

Photographer: Øystein Thorvaldsen

Vi skal elske naturen-

Else Matilde Lund, Museumsnytt

Commission for Kongsvinger municipality, NO

Kongsvinger ungdomsskole (junior high school), 2018

Pyrography, ink, lacquer

37 x 2,8 m

Architect HLM

Dark Drawn, 2018

Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Consolation, Vilnius, Lithuania

Artists:
Ian Damerell, Robert Johansson, Bas Ketelaars, Vanna Bowles, Lynette Smith, Algirdas Jakas

Curator:
 Ian Damerell

More about the exhibition / Event on Facebook

Organiser: 
Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts

Temporary outdoor project in Mo i Rana, Norway, 2017

Initiated by Nordnorsk kunstnersenter

Painted wood

width 3,2 x depth 4,8 x height 5 m

Commission for Troms fylkeskommune (County Council)at

Senja videregående skole (high school), Finnfjordbotn, NO, 2016

pyrography, ink, laqcuer

UV-print on on film

Architect Arkitema

Bergsdikt, Oslo Utmark (NO), 2015

Collaboration with Jan Hakon Erichsen

Arkaisk og omformet, Arve Rød, essay (in Norwegian) 

Bloc coloré, 2015-2018

Sculpture

Commission for Värmland County Council (landstinget)

Nytt operationshus, Centralsjukhuset, Karlstad, SE, 2016

Stratum I-IV, photo collages printed on tempered glass and film

Mappa mundi I-III, 2012/ 2015

Wooden, burnt sculptures

Teckningsmuséet i Laholm (SE) 2015

Värmlands museum, Karlstad (SE) 2012

National Grid, 2012

Photo collages printed on 300 gramm graphic paper

approx. sizes 70x90 cm

Nordnorsk kunstsenter, 2013

collaboration with Jan Hakon Erichsen

Photos by: Kjell-Ove Storvik

Nils Aas kunstverksted

 Inderøy (NO) 2013

Photos by: Erik Friis Reitan

Lemniskate

Frantz Navle, Bergen (NO), 2013

Silk screen on linen

Sculpture

Culture vulture I-V, burnt wood

Culture vulture No.5, respatex and wood

Drawings, 2012-2013

50x70 cm

on yellow paper

Taking down heaven, Sleipnir

Alma Löv Museum (SE) 2011

Installation

Public work at Boston Harbor Arts, East Boston Harbor Shipyard , in collaboration with Urban Arts Institute, Massachusetts, US

pyrography, relief, paint

3x 6 m

The work Inaugura, wooden relief and drawing, connects 19th century scientific drawings by Ernst Haeckel with a composition referring to the structure of a cross section of the human eye.

Inertia, 2010

Ink drawing

Tromsø kunstforening (NO) 2009-2010

Eli et al

Tou scene, Stavanger (NO) 2008

Installation

In situ, 2009

wooden relieff and wall drawing

Våler ungdomskole (junior high school), NO

Public commission for KORO Public Art Norway 

Architect: Arkitektlaget AS

Fly, 2008-2009

pyrography

Porsgrunn kunstforening (NO) 2008

Tegnerforbundet, Oslo (NO) 2009

SP Gallery, Stockholm (SE) 2010

Photos by: Nicklas R. Lello

Tonga 2007

Drawing (15 x 20 cm) and photos (30 x 40 cm)

The Body´s Thin Shell

collaboration with Vanna Bowles

Stenersenmuseet, Oslo (NO) 2004

Bomuldsfabrikken, Arendal (NO) 2004

Galleri Thomassen, Gothenburg (SE) 2005

ARS 06, Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki (FI) 2006

The 3rd Beijing International Art Biennale (CH) 2008

The Body's Thin Shell
ARS 06, Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki, Finland
Room X, 21 January - 5 March 2006
Catalogue text

Vanna Bowles and Robert Johansson have made several works that refer to fitness culture. By exploring the social status and stamina of the body, the works reveal the gap that traditionally separates culture and man as a natural creature. The Body's Thin Shell continues the theme by presenting a cross between classical sculpture and a fitness gym, where the weights resembleble animals.
The Body's Thin Shell builds upon active participation. The audience can choose between the roles of viewer and actor, someone who makes the work move and live, or switch between the two. The piece only works with participation. When the visitor begins to use the equipment, the sculptural pieces are transformed into behaviour in the present. The work becomes tactile art that involves the whole body, and where the audience can acquire something of a donkey's endurance, a bird’s chest muscles or a snake's suppleness. The piece examines the current culture ofself-control, where the body is not an instrument for physical work, but physical exercise is instead used to build and control our bodily exterior. Bowies and Johansson's work is a gym of excessive decadence, full of mysticism, eroticism and perversion. The air could be filled with groans, bodily fluids and the odour of bulging muscles. 
Animality and self-discipline are given free rein in collective exhibitionism that recalls the worship of the perfect body. However, it is not the perfectly sculpted body that the work focuses on, but our struggle against transitoriness and the sweaty, cleansing path to strength, attractiveness and wellbeing.

Per Brunskog
art critic, Malmö, Sweden