5. Mr Majestät

ARTIST: Lena Flodman (2018)
TECHNIQUE: Painted aluminium

When visiting Art at the Top you will be welcomed by Mr Majesty ass you reach the top of the staircase. It is a colourful and revolutionary welcoming. The art work consists of the lower part of a Barbie doll and a crocodile. Lena Flodman creates sculptures out of broken toys that have washed ashore on the beaches of Italy. The parts are combined in new ways and are given new life that gives us new frames for interpretation.

The principle of recycling is thus a base for Flodman´s artistry. Therefore it is also suitable that one of her works can be found here on Mount Kvarntorp. Just like the artist who creates beauty out of thrown-away objects, Art at the Top is also evidence of the fact that something new and beautiful can grow out of what is regarded as waste.

Her idiom is a mixture of the absurd imagery of surrealism and the pompous forms of Rococo. Using recycled products for creation is an eye-opener and gives us also a new way of looking at the world and the environment. Fantasy has no limits – let yourself be swept away by the colourful art work.

Lena Flodman was born in 1963. She had her first separate exhibit in 1997 and has since then had several separate exhibits. She has attended The Royal College of Fine Arts as well as The College of Arts, Craft and Design in Stockholm.

Her art can be found in many public places around the country. For example, she is represented by another work of art in Kumla, at the train and bus station. The work is entitled The Kumla Cone and consists exactly of a cone and a pair of red boots. Take a look at it if you appreciated Mr Majesty here on the mount.

Perhaps you might call Flodman´s work a kind of collage. On the one hand, she combines objects that conventionally lack connection, but perhaps above all she combines ideas that normally are very far apart from each other. Take a closer look at Mr Majesty –what exactly does the work depict? Nothing that you can find in the regular world, in any case. But you can find it in the world of art. Flodman problematizes our way of dividing up the world. Why should it not be possible to combine a Barbie doll and a crocodile?

Why must a Barbie look just like a Barbie? Because someone has chosen to construct it just like that. Flodman shows here how simple it might be to choose something else.

We have the possibility to construct our own world –thanks to Mr Majesty we can gain an insight into Flodman´s world. Let your imagination run riot. What might you construct out of toys – which worlds do you carry within?