Catalogue text:

Bjørn Hegardt’s drawings always signal an assured grasp of tight compositions and a strong, graphic line. His figurative expressions, mostly in black and white, are concentrated towards the distilled. They accentuate spaces that are imaginary but can be experienced as strangely concrete in their austerity. Contour lines and clean surfaces suggest the potential symbolic character of things; there is no exaggerated use of detail or shadowing here.

In a number of works, Hegardt actively uses the starry sky, divided into visual fields, as a motif, and the stars in the firmament become energetic and condensed points which can be said to characterise his expression as such. The resolved tidiness of the line is always moving towards more complex and enigmatic contexts. In ambivalent architectural structures, balancing between mass and ruin, and isolated representations of objects like furniture, Hegardt, using simple techniques, succeeds in displacing the utilitarian logic of things and invading them with chaos. Objects pile up in clusters. The abruptly organic inventory smokes and explosions appear; the dark undertone of the drawings is always present. Through visual and conceptual transformations and distortions, Hegardt creates something naïve and sparkling, which is pitted against the parallel forces of decay.

Bjørn Hegardt is the editor of the international magazine of drawing, Fukt, which can be thought of as a gallery in the shape of a magazine. He is also one of the few Nordic drawers that figure in the fine anthology of drawing Vitamin D: New Perspectives in Drawing, published by Phaidon.

Line Ulekleiv 2008
Translated by Martin Grüner Larsen