Richard Höglund: Vine Pictures

About

Inspired by a vine, the works in the exhibition explore the sensual content of the concept and ideology behind it. Continuing themes explored in Höglund’s earlier series, these works stem from a profound philosophical approach to drawing. The artist allows the thought and sensation that the vine evokes in him unfold; he follows the immaterial idea though his drawing and writing, trying to make space for it to mature unconstrained by the limits of figuration and interpretation.

Vine Pictures demonstrate the coming together of two strata of time – the past seen in the figurative representations of the vine in ancient Greek culture, and Höglund’s present fascination with the strength of the physical vine growing behind the house where he was staying in Naxos. The paintings Höglund developed express the universality of the idea of continual unfolding of life and growth of spirit that the vine represents. There is simplicity in the unfurling of meaning with the passing of time. Just like life, meaning, and thought, the vine has a beginning, a root in the Earth; it exists in a continuous process of adaptation and movement. The vine has a directionality about it, it is a vector reaching out and up towards the sky; though its end is often concealed, covered by layers of previous growth – just like the end of a thought that cannot be seen in its progression, hidden behind other thoughts that arise with time.