20. Rännil

ARTIST: Ebba Matz (2001)
TECHNIQUE: Stainless steel

Ebba Matz, the artist, sculpts modestly and with small means. She works with a quiet presence and a simple form. Rile here on the mount is one in a series of works where she works in this way to convey great sculptural power. She has said the following about her discrete works: “It does not matter that it is not so conspicuous – those who see it, will see it.”

Her modest rill runs down the slope instilling hope. It emerges from the devastated landscape, creates a well and disappears into earth. Mount Kvarntorp is undergoing a process of healing. Rill mirrors that development. Nature is beginning to recover here, animals come to drink, people move here. In spite of everything there is hope and a future.

Considering its size it is often discovered by mere chance. Many of the works you see here refer in some way to the shale oil project that created this pile of ashes on the mount. Ebba Matz might be clearest when it comes to showing what was extracted from the cinders that you are standing on right now. On first sight we might associate Rill to water. But who says that it is just water? Instead it might be oil or gasoline that the work is imitating.

Ebba Matz was born in 1963 and is a Swedish artist. She was trained at Idun the Art School and at the Royal College of Fine Arts, both located in Stockholm. She had her first separate shows in Stockholm and at the county museum in Jönköping. She has been a member of the Academy of Art since 2007 and has been awarded the sculpture prize from Friends of the Museum of Modern Art.

In addition to Rill she also has a sculpture in central Kumla. The title of the art work is Here and has been there since 2008. There is another copy of Here placed in Gothenburg.

To use the potential of the art work´s surroundings has become Matz´ specialty. Her low-keyed sculptures activate space and surfaces we otherwise perhaps would not notice. If you look at Rill for example: don´t you also notice nature around it? In a somewhat magical way the sculpture becomes a part of its environment, yes nature becomes a part of the art work.

Matz carries out one of the most important tasks of art, i e, to visualize or point out possibilities and relationships that are either hidden or seem exhausted.

In other words, Matz´ work can be seen as a comment on man´s relationship to nature. An artificial rill placed in nature – in the same way that the mount is an artificial mountain placed in nature. But Rill also points to a way forward. Perhaps the art work symbolizes the greenery that has regained a foothold, perhaps it is also a conceptual well of health, a reminder that we can learn from our mistakes.