”You Have Found Happiness In Slavery Congratulations To You”

Thoughts go back to the books from your childhood, cartoons and fables. The secrets of the forest entice, as well as its mystical animals, both real and imaginary. The same objects and motifs are constantly recurring, the bird nest, the mysterious bear figure, the birch. The viewer is torn between the dark forest and the colourful fairytale-like areas, and then all of a sudden, reality, the contemporary, appears and distorts everything – over and over again.

Storytelling is always present in Andreas Poppelier’s work. However the story is never over-explicit. Instead there are only fragments, cut-up stories that are spread around. There is a darkness in Andreas Poppelier’s work that attracts; indistinct figures hiding in the shadows, blurred faces, objects reminding one of wigs are lying around alone. The message is subtle, but you can sense both a political and a topical undertone in several works. Sometimes it’s more obvious, such as in the work entitled,”You Have Found Happiness In Slavery Congratulations To You”. A lukewarm irony appears in the meeting between the monumental shape and the straightforward title. The titles are important to the art; sometimes they are as important as the work itself. They can be a very direct interpretation of the artwork but they can also be the result of collected words and sentences from books and films, but mostly from song lyrics.

Andreas Poppelier is a diverse storyteller; he chooses the medium and expression through the subject. This variation has become part of his artistry, not to stay within one way of expression, continuing to investigate ways to formulate his ideas. A past within the graffiti culture and an interest in tattoos is noticeable but these cultural preferences have a place in Poppelier’s artistry together with an interest for, among others, renaissance paintings. Nothing is too high or low, something which can be seen in the works displayed at Galleri Thomas Wallner. Everything should be taken seriously.

Andreas Poppelier has a Master Degree from the Malmö Art Academy. He has exhibited, both solo and in group shows, at Ping-Pong in Malmö, Arnstedt & Kullgren in Båstad, Loppraum in Berlin, Donn Roca in Odense and Kuntsi in Wasa.

Andreas Nilsson (Original text in Swedish, not translation)
Exhibition Assistant
Dunkers kulturhus