Sunburst: Julia Bondesson

Belenius proudly presents the gallery's first solo exhibition by Julia Bondesson.

In the first solo exhibition by Julia Bondesson at Belenius gallery the artist will show new works made in the last year, both figurative sculptures and reliefs. An installation which shares the title of the exhibition, is a largescale marionette puppet hanging from a scaffold. Bondesson recounts that her inspiration comes from choreography and the bodily ability to be part of a narrative, to convey something greater and beyond. The motions are occasionally paused as in an everlasting moment - yet without being frozen solid. The human body possess an inherent testimony - it may have scars, wounds, well-trained or not. Whatever we do or however we live our body is the only vessel we have on earth. The works are made out a hardwood, the small-leaved linden in the workshop the artist share with a carpenter. There she meticulously sculpts the choreography. Bondesson scorches the wood, colorize it and draws with neon.

In theatre, dance and the opera scene the human fate and our actions are portrayed with the body as a steppingstone, in the same way as the sculptures of Bondesson. During the pandemic we have been robbed of the opportunity to gather and enjoy these motions. The sculptures function as a cure, a medicine as they create scenes in the physical world. The works speaks for themselves, their meaning revealed in the visual experience.

"Science, Order, and Creativity" is a legendary book by the physicists Bohm & Peat (1987). In it they seek to dissolve the petrification within technology and science, that in some cases do more harm than good, and they describe the need of a new creativity as the remedy. The human creativity relieves us all from the crisis. Bondesson refers to this book as she strives to return to motion as a counterweight to the petrified. Wholeness is emphasized rather than fragments, it is time for a new paradigm with a profound meaning in contrast to completely surrendering to technology. Bondesson have studied at a puppet theatre in Taiwan. You can sense this in the sculptures, as the tone unfold a sanctity which celebrate the body as an essential instrument for harmony, rather than being secondary to intellect.

In 2021 it has been sixty years since the famed "Art in Motion" opened at the Modern Museum in Stockholm. Among the multitude of artist-heavyweight champions in the exhibition, Nikki de Saint Phalle has to be mentioned here in connection to Bondesson. In the new corporeality liberated from ancient expression, one can surmise a lineage over these sixty years. The sculptures by Julia Bondesson aren't exclusively feminine, yet the motion seem to continue. Not least in her upcoming solo exhibition at the Modern Art Museum in Malmö this fall.

/Valter Sydén

Julia Bondesson was born 1983 in Kinnared, Sweden. She is an artist focusing on sculpture and performance, and she lives and works in Killeberg in the south of Sweden. She studied at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm 2006-2011, with two exchange years in Asia. The first at the Chiang Mai University Faculty of Fine Arts in Thailand and later in 2009 at the University of Tsukuba in Japan.

Selected solo exhibitions:
2021 Moderna Museet, Malmö (upcoming)
2019 Ghost Dance, Eskiltuna konstmuseum, Estilstuna
2018 Ny förbindelse, Hertha Hillfon c/o Skeppsholmen, Stockholm
2017 Vertical Phantom, Vandalorum, Värnamo
2016 At Night, Halmstad Konsthall, Halmstad
2015 Beckers Art Award: Training Camp for the Animal Spirit, Färgfabriken, Stockholm
​​​​​​​2010 Acts of Mindless, Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm