Lina Bjerneld, born in Mora (1979), lives and works in Stockholm. She graduated in 2008 from The Royal Institute of Art in Stockholmwhere she now also works as a professor of Fine Art specialising in painting/drawing. She is represented in the collections of Moderna Museet and Malmö Konstmuseum.
On 30 March at 16.00-18.00, Lina Bjerneld inauguration as professor takes place in Muralen at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. The lecture will be held in english.
When Lina Bjerneld exhibited at Konstakademien in Stockholm in the midst of the burning pandemic, Kunstkritikk’s critic and editor Frans Josef Petersson highlighted Bjerneld’s ability to formulate “the creeping anxiety that comes when the body feels that something is going to happen, but nothing happens”. He described the exhibition as prophetic. In the space, large-scale paintings of chimes about to fall apart – or disintegrate – were juxtaposed with drawings of human struggle. But there were also paintings of the lonely, those quietly making music, those trying to make a sound.
Petersson suggested in his text that the viewer was offered an exorcism of the extreme individualism of our time. Bjerneld herself describes a self-reflexive practice, one that uses the medium – drawing and painting – to understand and comment on social, political and psychological phenomena. Her practice has often moved beyond the exhibition space, taking the form of publications and collaborations.
She mentions how important it is to break the idea of art only as an exhibition object and to instead emphasise the contexts it creates.
Art, she says, must be able to find a place in society in many different ways.
“I’m very interested in using the special nature of art in being able to perceive what lies beyond our conceptual world or at the edge of language. Art’s ability to embody, narrate and share our experiences of being human. The desire to articulate what drives us forward, towards the unexpected, the strange, the joyous or uncontrollable.”
Bjerneld explains that in her subject area there is a strong connection to the various histories of painting, but that the material and discursive qualities of the medium also offer great potential to develop new methods, contexts and techniques.
Her own painting practice often uses installation to accentuate a condition, but also for a spatial understanding of the work – not as separate parts, but as a larger whole.
“Right now I’m looking at different analogue and dialogical ways of painting, drawing and printmaking in the research project Institutes for Reproducibility, and how they can work across borders or cross-pollinate each other.”
Lina Bjerneld herself was educated at the Royal Institute of Art. Before taking up her position as professor, she even worked here as a lecturer. She has therefore good insight, but also an understanding of what it means to be in a creative process, to, as she describes it, “wrap around something”.
It is, she says, in many cases a suggestive state.
Among other things, Bjerneld points to the arduous search for form that lies outside the concept of beauty. The sense of energy, the endless decisions and changes in search of expression.
“To do this, to capture the energy or the unexpected and build it into a substance is a fragile thing to do and a labourious job. That’s why it’s great that there is a large, knowledgeable team at KKH that knows these processes and can support the students in different ways. And that it is possible to move between different subject areas and different discussions. “
In her work as a professor, she hopes to give students access to different models of practical investigation, to critical thinking and self-reflection, and to encourage a real commitment to both their education and their own artistic practice.
She mentions that she is very excited about the opportunity to follow students in a mixed year group over a long period of time.
Art, says Bjerneld, is often a slow and time-consuming process.
It is therefore necessary that the teaching reflects that as well.
