Galleri Carlson Starck

At the Gallery

27/6 - 9/8 2026

JOSEFIN BRAVO

INSIST

Josefin Bravo

My creations is inspired by color, humor, and provocation, are ever-evolving, reflecting my restless creativity. I approach my art as a live performance, where the creative process unfolds with immediacy and intensity, often accompanied by loud music. My own musical journey as a double bass player, marked by years in orchestras, chamber groups, and punk bands, has instilled within my practice a sense of discipline and harmony—qualities now central to my glassblowing. When the molten glass, heated to over 1000 degrees, is on my pipe, the symphony commences.

In my artistic practice, I delves into the interplay between beauty and rawness, challenging the boundaries of glass by juxtaposing it with rigid, cold, and angular objects, creating a striking contrast to the material’s glossy surface. This combination highlights the inherent duality of glass: its smooth surface alongside its sharpness—an instantaneous transition between hot and cold that can occur in mere seconds. By skillfully manipulating materials with the force of gravity and my own physical strength, I allow the ”bling” of glass to emerge, allowing it to reflect both its refined and untamed nature.

My work embodies strength and vulnerability, using glass to contrast raw metal forms. Influenced by punk’s rebellious edge, my pieces emphasize resilience and freedom, merging elegance with grit. My glass, both delicate and commanding, challenges boundaries to mirror the strength and physicality of my own body.

I envisions my creations as bodies that crawl around, searching for a place to conquer, rest, settle, implode, explode or even expands.

The finished artwork is frozen in time, and to experience the movement, the viewer is taken back to the moment before it was fixed, just as the final form settles.

ÖPPETTIDER:
VERNISSAGE LÖRDAG 27 JUNI KL. 13 -16

28 JUNI – 9 AUGUSTI
TISDAG – SÖNDAG KL. 11 -17

Past exhibitions

21/3 - 10/5 2026

Helene Schmitz

Fotografi

HELENE SCHMITZ

(b. 1960, Stockholm)

Through her photography, Helene Schmitz explores humanity’s complicated relationship to Nature and the elements, to time and transience. Schmitz’s works often deal with conditions in the natural world that are about to shift. In her landscapes we can experience movements and transformation that turn what has been familiar into something unfamiliar. Her photographic suites are often reflections on how the elements violently intertwine with human culture and activities.

Part of her artistic practice is dedicated to plants and she has a deep interest in the botanical world- also depicting also how plants were described during the Enlightenment. More recently, she has studied how human activities inscribe themselves in the contemporary landscape.

Schmitz has a BA in Film and Art History. Her numerous solo shows in Sweden include Galleri Flach (2023), Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde (2018), Skellefteå Konsthall (2017), Fotografiska Stockholm (2016). She has participated in several group exhibitions, including The Romantic Eye at Nationalmuseum Stockholm (2024), Human / Nature at Fotografiska New York (2024), A HOME at Thielska Galleriet (2022)

Schmitz is also doing solo shows internationally: Galerie Maria Lund, Paris(2024), House of Sweden, Washington (2021), Fotografiska, Tallinn (2021), Fotografiska New York (2020), Fotografisk Center Copenhagen (2019), Turn Gallery, New York (2017) International group shows include In Bloom, Fotografiska Stockholm (2023), Snowflakes and other Surprises, Nordic Photographic Center Oulu, Finland (2023), Fotografisk Center Copenhagen (2022), Feral Atlas Collective, Sharjah Architecture Triennial (2019), Feral Atlas Collective, Istanbul Biennial (2019), Herbarium Fotografi og Botanik, Fotografisk Center Copenhagen (2017), QPN #19 CHAOS, Nantes (2015).

Schmitz’s artistic œuvre has also been featured in several award-winning books where she has collaborated with writers, philosophers and historians of ideas, including Thinking Like a Mountain (2018), Borderlands (2015), Ur Regnskogens Skugga (2011), System och Passion (2007) and Blow Up (2003).

The book Thinking Like a Mountain won the Swedish Publishing Prize in 2019. Both Blow Up and Ur Regnskogens Skugga were nominated for the Swedish literary prize August Prize.