Lena Johansson

Overview

Lena Johansson is widely recognised for her arresting oil paintings on panel, where motifs drawn from lifestyle media are reinterpreted through her broad, sensuous brushwork. These seductive surfaces engage in a dialogue with the commercial and fashion imagery that informs much of her oeuvre. For Johansson, fashion photography and advertising are not merely vehicles of persuasion, but essential cultural artifacts—reflections of collective dreams, desires and the enduring human pursuit of beauty, seduction and sensuality.

Her practice is rooted not only in the iconography of these worlds, but also in their material reality. Forsaking traditional canvas, Johansson works across both panel and the very garments that inhabit the realm she evokes—white T-shirts, denim, scarves. In contrast to her panel paintings, these textile pieces are intentionally raw and unrefined, bearing visible traces of process: drips, stains, punctures and imprints of the artist’s touch.

In recent work, Johansson extends her inquiry into new territory, examining the criminal underworld’s fascination with luxury brands as markers of status and power. Drawing from evidentiary photographs presented in court—images of confiscated waist bags, handbags and other accessories from the world’s most coveted luxury houses—she translates these artifacts onto found materials. In doing so, she both complicates the glossy image projected by global luxury conglomerates and underscores the paradoxical allure of the very symbols she interrogates.

Lena Johansson (b. 1975) lives and works in Sweden. She has previously exhibited at institutions such as ARKEN Museum of Contemporary Art, Ishøj, Denmark; Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium, Vestfossen, Norway; Moderna Museet, Malmö, Sweden; Lunds Konsthall, Sweden; Värmlands museum, Karlstad, Sweden; and Ystads Konstmuseum, Sweden.

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