Es.Arte Gallery is pleased to invite you to the opening of Johan Wahlstrom’s new exhibition: HIDDEN FIGURES 2. After the success of his previous exhibition in New York with Andy Warhol’s work, the artist brings us his work again in a second exhibition at EsArte Gallery. The event will take place on Friday April 5th 2019 at 19:00, and will end at 22:00.

The Swedish artist Johan Wahlstrom folds the passage of time in his visual space. With his new works, Wahlstrom channels nature to symbolize his inner emotional state.

His canvases are intentionally enigmatic. The Hidden Figures achieve the communication of emotions through visual elements, changing the understanding between the artist and his anonymous subject. The new paintings contain patterns that differ from Wahlstrom’s previous works.

These patterns derive strength in their creation while communicating energy to the viewer. As a result, they almost collapse under the weight of their own illegibility.

We experience a lively tension between the desire to interpret and understand the relatively simple portrait, as well as its configuration.

His work continues to evoke a northern cultural heritage. Transmitting the complexities and distortions inherent in our own cultural and temporal experience. Wahlstrom believes that these works have unconsciously had their source in ancient legends.

Finally, with these new works the artist breaks the boundaries of his previous opus and his use of narrative space. This gives his work a palpable intensity and a certain discomfort. With this new work, he invites the viewer to meditate on his own emotional state.

Johan Wahlstrom was born in 1959 in Stockholm, Sweden, and is a fifth generation artist. Although art was in his blood, his first creative path was Rock & Roll, where he had a long and successful career as a keyboardist and singer, touring with Ian Hunter, Graham Parker, Mick Ronson and many Scandinavian artists.

After 20 years, the life of Rock & Roll surpassed him. Wahlstrom moved to a small town in France where he did nothing but paint for seven years, part of this time under the tutelage of Swedish artist Lennart Nystrom. The dark, narrative paintings of heads and torsos are inspired by the cryptic, often ironic social criticism he collects on pieces of paper in his studio. He currently lives and works in New York City.