THE STORY OF FOUR

ABOUT US

Four is a gallery and a workshop located in the central parts of Göteborg, Sweden. Four is a platform for discussions about art, jewellery, work and inspiration. The aim is to communicate jewellery art and to communicate with jewellery - making it visible and easy to access for a broad audience. The gallery presents some of the highlights from the jewellery scene, showing both international and Swedish, well established and emerging artists. The ambition is to provide a diverse program interesting both for hard-core jewellery enthusiasts and visitors who are new to this art genre. The pieces are most often displayed in a way that the visitors can touch them and try them on - discover not only the visual, but also the other qualities of the objects like weight, structure, smell and sound.

Four opened in 2010. Over the years the members have changed but the number of benches in the workshop has stayed the same: four. But it is not only the members who make Four what it is. We get visits from artists and jewellery fans from Göteborg, from other parts of Sweden and from all over the world. Their artwork, questions, comments, ideas and energy is a very important part of Four.

hanna@fourgallery.com

HANNA

LILJENBERG

When I grew up I wanted to be a painter. Later an idea of putting my work on bodies made me step into the world of art jewellery. I studied at the Academy of Art and Design - HDK in Gothenburg from 2006 and got my MFA in 2011.

I often use paper or thin metal sheets as a starting point for my jewellery. I love the possibilities of these foldable materials. The light and flexible qualities let me create shapes with a certain organic sharpness. There is something meditative in cutting and folding the hundreds and hundreds of paper pieces that I use as building blocks for my jewellery. I use scissors or knives as tools. Their inevitable directness suits my working method and the aesthetics that I’m looking for. The colouring and the fine lines characterize my jewellery.

I have two main sources of inspiration, the nature and ocean of the west coast and the complexity of the human body and mind. I have always felt a strong connection to the ocean and I love the delicate but rough surfaces like seaside barnacles or rock lichens, which are both fragile and strong. My relationship to the ocean is however somewhat ambiguous. It feels like it is a part of me, yet I am scared of the world hidden under the surface. Several pieces of jewellery tell stories of my yearning to the sea.

The human body’s ability to both amaze and dismay captivates me and our need to be adorned and to beautify also fascinates me. I have made collections inspired by dutch still life paintings with decaying flowers and dark undertones where my jewellery pieces become a floral painting and the individual objects become a manmade growth to dress the body. The idea of people wearing my pieces as an extension of themselves is very intriguing.

www.hannaliljenberg.se

karin@fourgallery.com

KARIN ROY

ANDERSSON

I grew up in Umeå, Sweden, where I was born in 1983. I studied at the Natural Science programme, convinced that I would become a mathematician or a doctor, but in 2003 I moved to Göteborg and started at the jewellery department at HDK. I got my MFA in 2009 and since 2010 I am responsible for the exhibition program at Four.

The urge to repeat movements over and over again, methodically and resolutely is something that is significant for both my personality and my work - multiplicity and recurrence attracts me. The variations between the details become important creating patterns and rhythms. My aim is to make jewellery where dynamic patterns form harmony and balance.

Like many others, I find a lot of inspiration in nature; fish, birds, plants and landscapes. The shapes and patterns keep on appearing in my pieces but in a non-figurative way that gives space for own interpretations.

I often use waste material; melon seeds, chewed chewing-gums or plastics collected from garbage containers and ditch-banks. I keep my eyes open when I go to the hairdresser, I search in my friends’ bathrooms and fridges – you have to be observant if you are going to find that perfect jewellery material. The plastics still have traces from the consumer society, but in the finished pieces, the industrial image has gained a more organic impression. From the plastics, I make scales that I sew together by hand. Different colours and shapes give different associations and it’s often when I sew the pieces together and the material grows that it starts reminding me of something and that it gets a title and a background story.

To me jewellery is communication. The life of a piece starts with an idea or when experimenting with a material. When the finished piece meets an audience another process starts. My experiences are mixed with the thoughts and associations of others and the object develops. The intimate connection to a wearer and a body makes the relation to the recipient very special.

www.karin-roy.se

linnea@fourgallery.com

LINNÉA

ERIKSSON

I was born 1987 in Filipstad, Sweden, where I grew up surrounded by the lushing forests and calming shimmering lakes. Already as a child I dreamt of becoming an artist, expressing myself through my hands, and even though the path which led me to the world of jewellery was far from straight, when I finally arrived at my destination there was no looking back.

Since 2008 I’ve been living in Gothenburg, where I’m now working as a goldsmith and jewellery artist. I graduated from HVE-Goldsmith school in Falköping 2017, with a journeyman certificate, and took my BFA in Jewelry Art, at School of Design and Crafts, HDK, Gothenburg 2011, including an exchange semester in Jewellery & Metalsmithing at Rhode Island School of Design, RISD, Providence, USA.

My work is a reflection of my surroundings, and my creativity has its origin in the urban - the rough surfaces of the city, and in structured geometric shapes. I draw my inspiration from pieces of metal, from the feeling of a heavy beat and from bursts of color from within the spray cans. It’s when fusing traditional goldsmith techniques with modern street expression that my jewellery finds its meaning, and subject matters such as my family’s origin story and the search for belonging, are recurring themes throughout my artistic work.

www.linneaeriksson.se

AMMELI

ENGSTRÖM

I was born in 1983 in the north of Sweden. After completing a three-year apprenticeship in Tibet, making traditional Tibetan Jewelry, I undertook one year of metal-smithing at Leksands Folkhögskola, an exchange semester at the Dunedin School of Art, New Zealand, and then studied at École Boulle in France. Since 2011, I live in Gothenburg, where I since 2017 am a part of Four. In 2017 I received an MFA degree in jewelry art from the Academy of Design and Crafts, HDK and have been a member of its teaching faculty since 2018.

My work often explores jewelry as an interstitial practice. I am interested in different enactments that allow jewelry to articulate an expansive understanding of an object. The concept of function is paramount to my practice. I’m fascinated by its inferences and possible interpretations.

My work often references traditional craft techniques and while I sway back and forth, I examine its classical structures. I tend to stretch and push a material to its limit. It is in this close dialogue with a material, its tolerance and boundaries, that I find a language that speaks to me.