ikebana
We are pleased to present three new artworks by Erik Berglin. He calls the series Ikebana Arrangements, named after the traditional Japanese art of arranging flowers. Where Western florists in many cases put the emphasis on the decorative when combining the colors and the beauty of the flowers, practitioners of Ikebana choose to focus on simplicity. Clean lines and the aesthetic interplay between the vase, flowers, leaves and stems are important. The arrangement is intended to be viewed from a specific angle and not from all sides, as in the Western circular tradition.
Erik Berglin's image suite has taken inspiration from the Ikebana tradition, but he carefully builds his images with digital manipulation. Each motif consists of around a hundred images of flowers that have been exposed and carefully manipulated to create painterly effects.
Flowers have historically been a frequently recurring motif in art. Such a well-known motif can easily become perfunctory and boring. That is precisely why Berglin has returned to flowers as a motif in several different series - to explore whether he can make something new out of it. Ikebana Arrangements is a completely new picture suite, but it was preceded by Tulip Variations, which, among other things, was shown at the Musée de l'Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland and was included in their collection. The same series was included in the major anthology Flora Photographica - Flowers in Contemporary Photography - published by Thames & Hudson, 2022.
The artworks are digital pigment prints of the highest quality on acid-free paper made in editions of 30, signed and numbered by the artist.
Erik Berglin received his Master of Fine Arts from Akademin Valand in Gothenburg in 2010. Berglin has received around 20 scholarships and is represented in the collections of the Musée de Elysée in Switzerland, Hasselblad Center, and Gothenburg Museum, among others. In 2022 he was awarded the Swedish Photo Book Award for his book The Bird Project.
