Johannes Brander’s work is a glimpse to another universe, a psychedelic parallel world inhabited by characters that could belong to a prehistoric cave as much as to a metropolis of the future.
Cosmic shamanism, forbidden rituals, unknown presences and spirits appear in between the palms, surfboards and beach bums which populate Brander’s works. His exhibitions are chaotic, scattered into a thousand of tiny pieces, but there is a plan, an odd order which rules this chaos where the drawings, the paintings on wood and cardboard, the sculptures and the found objects and memorabilia are like small pieces of a galaxy, recomposing his vision while transforming the gallery space.
Orion Bells is the first solo show of Johannes Brander after a residency project brought him to Mexico for three months. Many of the artworks are delicate and almost ephemeral and most of the utilised objects are coming directly from his travelings bringing a warm and extravagant feeling which merges with the atmosphere of Brander’s work, as if this imaginary has always been part of it. The gallery is flooded in a surreal and psychedelic original soundtrack recorded by Brander himself that surrounds everything like a mystic fog.
With shapes growing out of a trembling light stroke as traced by the hand of an old wise, transparencies showing and hiding and something new appearing at every glance, Orion Bells is like a vision in a seance, a portal to a primitive yet futuristic world where everything is soaked in a unique and bewildering mysticism and psychedelia.
Johannes Brander (b. 1978) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gothenburg and has extensively exhibited in Sweden (Galleri Thomassen, Galleri Magnus Winström, Gallery Steinsland-Berliner), in Denmark and Mexico, where in 2015 he had a three months artist residency and a solo show at the Museo de la Ciudad de Querétaro. He also runs the record label Native Parts Records and plays in Skogar and numerous other musical projects.
Johannes Brander, Orion Bells, Gothenburg: Nevven Editions, 2016 — Fanzine catalog