He's Got The Shine

This is good. This is really, really good. Johan Thurfjells art is a quiet celebration of afterthought and slow, thorough work. His miniatures are literary small worlds, placed on a table surface. A Swedish person grown up in the 1970s might think of “Vilse i pannkakan”, if I were to use an obscure reference.

His art is full of references to popular culture, but without that shallow feeling of cliché that is often the result of such cross overs. His video Do You Have The Shine? is made to look like a trailer to a computer game, and features the viewer in the role of Danny in the famous tricycle scene from Kubrick’s master piece The Shining. It’s a haunting setting for an examination of perception, and the processes of the human mind.

Thurfjell works in many media. He makes drawings, sculptures, videos and installation pieces. The results are different, but the feelings of sadness and melancholy are always there.

If you don’t like this, there’s something wrong with you.