Space in between
(Book IMAGE 2000-2008)

The space in between is the state that Ewa-Mari is consistently investigating in these graphical and architectural views, to urge the viewer to take the time to feel how the images we see shape us. The photographs in the exhibition wants to give us a space that we ourselves can fill. in contrast to images in the media that has a pronounced purpose.

In between Space
A tribute to Olle Bærtling

Art that does not represent something makes no distinction between background and foreground in the composition. But in expressing it, a dimension of depth between the form and its surroundings may be added, as Gestalt psychology has demonstrated with many images-tests.

Olle Bærtling produced compositions entirely and exclusively consisting in forms and defined this new style as ”open form”.
Ewa-Mari Johansson takes off from this stylistic feature and composes images whose contents flow out of the frame. While in Olle Bærtling’s works the lines (often slightly curved, in the shape of a saber) are diagonal and branch out into different directions, lines are parallel in Ewa-Mari Johansson’s compositions.

Her images are stages of a research that is at the foundation of what is defined as concrete art. Ewa-Mari Johansson has conducted her activities all over the world and especially in Italy.

Teddy Brunius
Ph. D., Professor Emeritus of the History of Art

”Everything has its time”, says the Book of Psalms. ”There´s a crack in everything, that´s where the light gets in”, writes Leonard Cohen.

So after joy, sorrow. After sorrow, joy again. Life simply goes on, until the end. Change never stops. Life is change. Is change all there is? Inspired by philosopher Jacques Derrida, the western world has spent decades deconstructing objects, thoughts, families, borders, values, literature, fashion…

So here we are. This is it. All these loose parts. How can we use them? What shall we do with them? Can we even understand them? Did we learn anything? What? Can we build something?

Ewa-Mari Johansson is a builder. She is exploring that narrow space between birth and death, heaven and earth, first and eighth chakra. Call it life, if you like.

Shadow and light. Her pictures symbolize inner worlds, and doing that she´s using objects in the world we can see. She´s turning microcosmos into macrocosmos and the other way around. Wounds that heal into scars. Female bodies expressing so much more than the lovely curve of an S, traditionally sought after in the fashion world where Ewa-Mari worked first as model and then as a photographer.

Now: Ewa-Mari Johansson finds construction more interesting than deconstruction. Starting with a simple thought, she is searching for symbols that are obvious only to her. Always returning to triangular shapes, Ewa-Mari always seems to find them. There are no horizons to hold on to. Her triangles are encircling a confined space. Within? Between? Only you yourself know.

Writer Lena Katarina Swanberg