Fredrik Roos Art Grant 2011

Oskar Mörnerud (1976) studied at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, and today he lives and works in Malmö. His work is permeated with a fascination for the mechanisms of perception, the limitations of words, and the mystery of reality. Oskar Mörnerud creates sculptures and installations but is perhaps best known for his paintings, which are often based on photos, illustrations and newspaper cuttings as models in new and startling context.

In the new work, Panorama/Midbody, which is presented for the first time at Moderna Museet Malmö, Oskar Mörnerud brings together an illusionistic painting tradition – the panorama – with cellular biology. The work is a seven-meter-long painting that in the black-painted gallery space appears like a projection. Fragmented pictures and geometric figures form two linked ovals that recall the way a cell duplicates its set of chromosomes and then divides into two daughter cells. The two ovals confront us like a pair of gigantic eyes, and these eyes offer us a panoramic glimpse into a fragmented world. The work can be described as an intermediate form between a painting and a text, and the piece invites us to reflect on the interface between the actual world and our worldview.

The Fredrik Roos Art Prize is a newly established stipend in support of young artists’ further education and development. The purpose of the foundation is to award stipends to young Nordic artists, primarily active in the fields of painting and sculpture. The holder of the stipend is selected in collaboration with Moderna Museet Malmö, who produces an exhibition with the artist and hosts the award ceremony.

Panorama/Midbody

What is it we don’t see when we see? To what extent do language and our learned frames of reference determine how we put together our worldview?

Oskar Mörnerud’s work is permeated with a fascination for the mechanisms of perception, the limitations of words, and the mystery of reality. In his latest piece, Panorama/Midbody, he brings together an illusionistic painting tradition – the panorama – with cellular biology. The work is a seven-meter-long painting that in the black-painted gallery space appears like a projection. Fragmented pictures and geometric figures form two linked ovals that recall the way a cell duplicates its set of chromosomes and then divides into two daughter cells. The two ovals confront us like a pair of gigantic eyes, through which we are afforded a panoramic glimpse into a fragmented world.

As viewers we seem to find ourselves inside someone’s head. Sensory perceptions reach us primarily through the intermediary of the mass media, colliding and blending with earlier layers in a struggle to make an impression on us. The information war is our era’s global battlefield, and in Panorama/Midbody we get an idea of how that battle is in the process of becoming thoughts, feelings, and words in the mind of another person. Images (visual impressions) seem to disintegrate into chemical compounds and hieroglyphic signs. A series of monochromatic rectangles, circles, and lines can be interpreted as perceptions in the process of solidifying into feelings or being recoded into language. Panorama/Midbody can thus be described as an intermediate form between a painting and a text, and the piece invites us to reflect on the interface between the actual world and our worldview.

Curator: Joa Ljungberg