ABOUT
The Contemporary Art Modern Project is pleased to present
Homespun Grit, an online solo exhibition featuring a selection of works by Swedish artist
Tommy Lennartsson.
As a means to survive, we tend to internalize the whole of our surroundings and react without giving it too much thought, naturally immersing ourselves in our environments as we move through life and adapting accordingly. In other words, humans, like other animals, are equipped with an impulse for self-preservation. As humans, we are also fortunate to contain complementary impulses that push the limits of our imaginations, especially when given the opportunity to materialize them. What does this mean for those impulses that aren’t connected to our basic needs, but those we find influence in, those that spur us to create, even those that urge us to return the favor to our environments?
In
Homespun Grit,
Tommy Lennartsson’s quirky visual pastiches speak to our embodying of our environments—the ways in which we internalize sounds, pop culture, textures, faces, and find influence in what we think know most intimately about the worlds around us. His offbeat sensibilities celebrate the pleasant/chaotic dichotomy of postmodern life with a timeless, animated tenderness that frees us from the impulsions of survival and lets us settle into joy.
Lennartsson’s body of work evokes the gritty playfulness of street art through both abstraction and a simplification of even the most overwhelming of stimuli, inviting passersby to interrogate their own perspectives and impulses. This is best seen in This Ain’t My First Time at Rodeo, which presents a ragtag cast of mixed media neighborhood spectators; its title recalls both the global sport and the American turn of phrase, acting as a literal caricature of the influence we extract from our personal passions and the reprise of public art.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Tommy Lennartsson, born in 1970, is a Swedish artist who creates bold and colorful mixed media canvases. His works are executed in a range of materials, such as charcoal, ink, acrylic, pencil, pastel, airbrush and spray paint. The process is a spontaneous and impulsive one in which he layers materials one upon the other and occasionally stitching and sewing elements together until the piece begins to take shape. He is currently living and working in Sweden.
