JULIA K. PERSSON

Øyets speiling / The Mirror of the Eye

22 May - 29 June 2025

Tense is a grammatical term for time – it marks whether something is happening now, has happened, or will happen.

For this exhibition, Julia K. Persson presents a large floor installation alongside two wall-mounted sculptures. The floor piece consists of a ceramic relief resting on ceramic beams. The relief is composed of twelve segments, which together form a repeating profile of a face, and a child. By placing the relief on beams on the floor rather than mounting it on a wall, the work’s tense becomes diffuse, suspended in a ‘before’ or an ‘after’ rather than anchored in a static now.

This shifting sense of tense has been one of the recurring ideas throughout the process. In the act of drawing her mother’s face, Persson gradually recognized her own. In moments of magical thinking, she searched for her mother’s eye in the small pocket mirror she had inherited - but only her own eye appeared, though it resembled her mother’s.

It is in these shifts - or mirrorings - that Persson finds her focus: between generations and roles, between what once was and is no longer, between what has vanished and what has embedded itself within us.

Eleven short poems by Anna With accompany the exhibition.

Julia K. Persson (b. 1992, Sweden) primarily works with sculpture and installation in clay, ceramics, and textile. Through a strict yet tactile language, she explores constructions—not only physical structures, but also mental and imagined frameworks. It is often when something goes wrong, breaks, or comes to an end that her interest grows, and the work begins.

Persson holds an MFA from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. She has exhibited at Rackstadmuseet in Arvika, Konstepidemin in Gothenburg, Höganäs Konsthall, and QB Gallery in Oslo, as well as in several group exhibitions, for example at KRAFT in Bergen, London Craft Week, Kunstnerforbundet, and ROM for kunst & arkitektur in Oslo.

The exhibition is supported by KiN (Kunstsentrene i Norge) and the Arts Council Norway.