Sofia Restorp

In Sofia Restorp’s image world we meet a parallel reality where time is non-linear and the colours expressionistic. Restorp makes everyday objects into vessels for fanciful ideas, emotions and personalities. Her new series of drawings is characterised by a narrow, almost claustrophobic perspective that frames a set of heavily symbolic events. A lamp in trafic light yellow turns into a burning light that freezes time. In another picture, we follow a carrot’s fight against the seat belt that has benevolently pressed it against a cutting board. Restorp plays with scale to give the objects a new character and change their mutual relations. The images function as poetic analyses of society, as well as portraits of Restorp’s inner world, where the absurdities of contemporary life are treated with a sensitivity that sometimes borders on rage.

The works made with coloured pencils on paper are haunted by emotional ambivalence and a sense of impatiently waiting for an uncertain future. They portray an state the artist has shared with many people, locally and globally, this year. The drawings were created during the artist’s temporary move from London to Gällivare in the summer of 2020. As such, they illustrate a meeting between a cosmopolitan metropolis brought to an unprecedented halt, and a society stuck in limbo, where the new is gradually replacing the old in a rarely literal way.

Sofia Restorp (b. 1986, Nora) is an artist based in London.

Work

Down the Hallway, 2020
Buckled Up, 2020
Shelter, 2020
Settled Stare, 2020
Coloured pencil on paper

Location

Välkommaskolan, Malmberget
21.11–14.2