Visual artist working with Sculpture and drawing. Lives in Gothenburg, Sweden. Working in Gothenburg and Bohuslän. Born 1993 in Karlstad.
ruben_risholm@live.se
@rubenrisholm
2026 (original)
(English machine translation)
Article in YLE
2026 (original)
(English machine translation)
Review in Dagens Nyheter
2024
Review in Göteborgsposten
2023
Interview in Artnotes
2024
Podcast interview
2023
My work is drawing and sculpture, mostly in wood and ceramics, but also in stone and wool. When working in these materials one common factor is that the method is always repetitive, allowing the work to slowly emerge. This helps me reach the mental state needed for the works to feel animated. A mental state that allows unconscious thought content to be transferred to the form without breaking the surface of consciousness.
All my work can be situated in a slowly shifting and expanding inner world. This world is mainly populated by humanlike figures. I am cautious regarding what other objects or phenomena are allowed in the world. When deciding which ideas to work on, I choose those that I believe need to take physical form. The figures in my work appear to be still, since movements are related to specific time sequences. I do not want the original location of the works in time and space to be clearly decided. In most cultures and through recorded history, when we have tried to understand the world, we have turned to myths set in a different time and place. The distance to these places is big enough that it is not graspable in relation to the time in which we live. It is in this tradition I want to work, since it has helped us humans understand our place in the world. We can meet our common human needs and drives, that both separate and unite us, in these stories.
I am fascinated by the face and the gaze, and the responsibility that arises through the encounter with the other. In these thoughts I am influenced by the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, who argued that when we are confronted with the face of the other we are also struck by an infinite responsibility toward them. The ancient Egyptian sculpture tradition, where each sculpture fulfills an existential purpose, has had a great impact on me. Symbol, reality and depiction converge in still figures that assume a role through their static poses, and focused, intense presence. I am also affected by gothic art and medieval Christian mystics, nordic bronze age art and several nordic artists from the time around the last turn of the century, like Hugo Simberg, Ejnar Nielssen, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Ivar Arosenius and Carl Milles.
The fact that I work intuitively does not mean my ideas solely come from within. To visit museums and religious buildings to study artworks and ritual objects is important to me. I feel as though these impressions slowly sink in and blend with one another, as well as with my personal experiences, before taking the form of new ideas. In these new ideas, something that happened in my own life can merge with the archetypal stories that have helped us share our experiences with one another. Being able to deeply share the experience of being human with others is one of the few things that makes the challenges of life easier to endure.