The Horsetail, Sealed and Unsealed: Inez Jönsson

Inez Jönsson's new work can be concluded as being pictograms symbolizing Nordic minimalism in its true essence. The colours stems from what can be found in the Swedish forest and the symbolic language testifies to a unity where the fragments in themselves doesn't need to be an entity, but together they create minimalism. The parts thus make up something bigger. There is a line connecting her to the Arte povera movement. In that spirit the materials are cheap or for free, without minimizing the value of the art.

Jönsson studies limits. Painting, handicraft and technique are tied together to form a window towards the elevated. The purism in her work required an inner journey. The windows are opened and we can see what is outside - but also inside. There is a nod in the weaves towards Emma Kunz, especially since they invites the existential self -scrutiny. In this exhibition Jönsson has worked with lines, as limits and its opposite.  Two black fields are separated by a line, in the middle. The perfectionist in her wants to make the line completely straight, but the challenge is in leaving it un-straight. The eye can stills ee what it does to the whole picture. There is something deeply human in not using tape to form the lines, but letting the artist's hand create a line that is perceived straighter when being organic (in the middle of the colours and materials from nature).

Through this, painting has opened new possibilities for Jönsson. The new black works contain everything that a painting traditionally has, but she doesn't call them paintings. The treads made by flax don't create a weave together, but rather a linen canvas, being a painting without being painted. The frames are made in pine and breaths heavily of the connection to Swedish craft tradition and history. As fancy as ebony is, the local tradition has an allure, in this age of climate change. Simplicity gives new life to what can be found everywhere in sheds, on the fields, country houses and the countryside. The materials are re-shaped and reborn with a Nordic minimalism, a richness of species in all its simplicity, inspired by Linné.

Valter Sydén April 2019