LB°18 — Artists

ARKIV

Olof Marsja

Olof Marsja (b. in Gällivare, 1986) is an artist based in Gothenburg.

Olof Marsja’s artistic practice is full of centipedes, fur-clad miniatures and flying beasts as if lifted from a parallel universe. They are spectators without eyes peering out from the shadows and corners of the room. The foot is a recurring sculptural form in Marsja’s repertoire, a kind of tragicomic figure that seems to have been left behind all alone after some turbulent event. At the same time, however, it stands firmly on the ground, liberated from the heavy body it once carried. Liddu’s foot is made out of slate, pool sliders, stainless steel, aluminium, cherry wood, reindeer horn, as well as two ribbons, one woven by Marsja’s mother, the other by his grandmother. Marsja uses an assemblage technique in which differently connoted materials rub off on one another. He combines elements that resonate with his own personal history, like reindeer horn, fur, leather and burl, with ones that come with no particular association or sense of responsibility attached. The reindeer horn becomes a toe that brushes against a marble foot from an Italian renaissance sculpture, though they never quite merge. The fragmentary becomes instead an end in itself, and an aesthetic tool with which to demonstrate a certain movement. Objects and things are joined only to fall apart, and then be put back together in new ways. The figures seem to have agency of their own, posing the question: what happens if you think about us as alive; think about us as autonomous?

Olof Marsja (b. in Gällivare, 1986) is an artist based in Gothenburg.