Inner Room Sealant Touch

Currently presented in an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Konstakademien) in Stockholm (March 21–May 2) is artist Liva Isakson Lundin, recipient of Konstakademien’s exhibition grant from the Gerard Bonnier Fund in 2024. C-print catches up with the artist to learn more about the works currently shown as well as her upcoming exhibition Klockfjäder / Mainspring, opening on May 7 at Wetterling Gallery.

Photo: Liva Isakson Lundin

C-P: Congratulations once again on the exhibition grant and your exhibition titled Inner Room Sealant Touch, currently showing at Konstakademien. In this exhibition you exhibit a number of sculptural works where the primary material is cellular plastic. Could you tell us more about what led you to this new choice of material? On a second note, I was intrigued by the different forms by which the fragility of this material, cellular plastic, was exposed. I also detected a contrast between the material’s inherent “plasticity” and the vibrant nature brought forth through your treatment of it. I would love to know how this material has informed the themes you are exploring with the works on show.

L.I.I: Thank you so much!

I have been circling around silicone as a material for sculpture for a long time. The interesting thing is that I have not actually used silicone in a finished work since 2017, but it has been a part of so many ideas. It’s like the silicone drives my work further, but I always tend to leave it behind, as in this exhibition. A part of the idea was to use silicone as something soft that protects, in combination with works in plaster. To be able to work on a large scale, I was considering styrofoam as a core of the sculptures, but instead I fell for the styrofoam itself. I think the first important thing was the act of cutting with a hot wire—how the wire melts through the material so effortlessly, without any resistance, and simultaneously extends my movements into waves and irregularities in the cut. There is something I find interesting in the contrast of the waves and the sort of muteness of the styrofoam. Also, I realised that the material had the properties I was exploring in the silicone, being used as protective packaging, or to fixate fragile objects during transportation. The material I have used is normally for insulation in building projects. But it is also very fragile, and when shown bare like in this work, that aspect becomes obvious. The material has been breaking in the thinner sections, and dirt and handprints are visible all over the surface.

Photo: Liva Isakson Lundin

C-P: As with previous works you have exhibited, we get to see large-scale sculptural works. Can you walk us through the process and how considerations about scale and architecture inform the exhibited end result?

L.I.I: The scale of the room did dictate the scale of the sculptures. I work a lot with both physical and digital models to create my work, but it is always difficult to know how large something will actually feel in the space. In this case I wanted it to feel like the room itself was wrapped and sealed, or that the negative space between the sculptures was. The styrofoam also reflects the daylight from the ceiling in a specific way, so I decided not to use electrical light during the day. The first impression can almost be that it looks like a stone material.

Photo: Liva Isakson Lundin

C-P: Whilst many may associate your work with large-scale sculptural works where steel plates are a predominant material, you have worked with and incorporated a variety of materials into your practice. At the same time, one detects a sense of tension between the materials you use as a recurring theme; here between the cellular plastic and the steel cables that cut through the blocks we see. Tell us more about this theme and how your exploration of this relates to or differs from work with other materials’ tension, and how you approached this in the works shown.

In this work, the sculptures got their shape from the contour of the mainspring of a clockwork. It is a small spiral of spring steel that can be wound up to create tension, and that drives the inner mechanism of a clock. In previous works I have worked a lot with spring steel, bent into positions that store tension. I have been using different ways of holding the postures of the material. I have used ropes attached to the gallery space, blocks of gelatine, threaded rods, or gravity itself.

In the installation for Konstakademien, I wanted to try to invert the situation by removing the steel material and reducing it to a cut through solid blocks of styrofoam. The relation between the solids is what fixates the exact shape of the spiral spring. The potential energy is held in place by the structure of the packaging, but is transformed into an echo of surface and volume. The cables are left without a purpose, or they mark the possibility to change or continue the installation. The blocks of styrofoam could be suspended in relation to each other through the holes, as they work as a jig that could connect the parts.

Photo: Liva Isakson Lundin

C-P: I'm curious about what sources or references you draw inspiration from in your practice. Do you look to other artists’ work, past or present, as inspiration or a reference point in any way?

L.I.I: My way of working is very much focused on the physical qualities of the, often industrial, materials that I use, and the processing of them. This is an approach that of course has clear points of reference to minimalism and post-minimalism. It is not so much a conscious choice to reference this type of work as it is just how my brain works. I always need to be doing something practical in the studio to not be blocked and freeze. I do a lot of tests and works that are never finished, that are only a path to the next thing. I change my mind a lot, and I often keep altering things until the last minute. It is a continuous act of doing, and the practical solutions that I learn, or that I have to figure out myself, become components of the idea and of an emotional state. I dig in my studio and in the material properties, like a termite.

The title of the show at Konstakademien, Inner Room Sealant Touch, is like a conclusion of my working process over a few years. For me, the sealant—as in the caulk or glue that is often latex- or silicone-based, used to seal edges and gaps in construction—has become a connecting substance, or something that keeps a distance. It is tactility and surface of contact. I have been working a lot with different forms of attachment, and changing relations or amounts of control.

Photo: Liva Isakson Lundin

C-P: You are currently in the last stages of preparing an exhibition which will open on May 7 at Wetterling Gallery titled Klockfjäder / Mainspring. What can you tell us about the works that will be on display in your upcoming show?

L.I.I: I have been working with both shows simultaneously since the openings were so close in time. The title Klockfjäder exists in relation to the installation at Konstakademien. The works I am showing are mainly sculptures in plaster, where I have made casts of the two sides of deformed aluminum plates. As in Inner Room Sealant Touch, the work treats a space in between, or an absence, but also a transition between positions or states.

The parts of the casts are installed in different ways where they show more or less of their insides. Some of the sculptures interact and lean towards each other; others are completely separated. The works also range from large scale to very small. There might be a form of fragmentation or separation going on, as breaks and cracks in the material are also visible in some of the sculptures. The smallest ones are just about 10 cm in height and consist of broken-off details of larger pieces. I will also show a small group of paintings that have been made during the last two years. I go back and forth a lot between painting and sculpture. My way into plaster as a sculptural material was through painting, as I have been working with how the base of the painting absorbs in works of plaster and gouache.

Corina Wahlin