Installation view. Courtesy of the gallery.

Fredrik Söderberg’s solo exhibition, “I am He who Buries the Gods in Gold and Gems” is currently on view at Galleri Riis in Oslo, Norway and also his most extensive presentation of recent paintings so far, following up on some of the themes in his exhibition in our Stockholm gallery last year. Söderberg’s work is largely inspired and informed by the spiritual, the esoteric and the occult, with references to such Buddhist traditions as tantrism and other oriental teachings. The western occult movements appearing at the end of the 1800s and beginning of the 1900s, with several of their initially obscure yet eventually influential protagonists, have also been a major source of inspiration and field for subjective mapping in Söderberg’s oeuvre.

Installation view. Courtesy of the gallery.

A Warning from the Sun, 2013. Watercolour on paper
101 x 101 cm. Courtesy of the gallery.

The title of the exhibition, “I am He who Buries the Gods in Gold and Gems” is a quote from Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), central to many of the works, especially in a series of monumental diptychs depicting the controversial psychiatrist, philosopher and mysticist’s houses in Küsnacht and Bollingen outside Zürich. Söderberg views the stylized architecture of these houses as vessels containing Jung´s ideas, his activities and knowledge lodged in them. In a striking large-scale portrait of Jung he is embedded in various religious cultures and mythologies growing wild.

In many of the works a cosmic abstract expression is paired with an accurate figurative and archetypal style, incorporating pure and intricate mandala images inspired from Tibetan Buddhism and Native American nature religion and traditional crafts, all meticulously executed in watercolour, mineral colours and gold leaf.

This exhibition is on view through November 16th, 2013.

For more information on “I am He who Buries the Gods in Gold and Gems” visit Galleri Riis in Oslo, Norway.