Nature is depicted in Roland Persson’s painterly silicone sculptures and large-scale installations with an ambiguous tension, balancing destruction and creation. His representations of reality often blend in surreal, dreamlike elements, with plants and animals appearing distorted and mistreated by humanity. Persson has long been fascinated by the relationship between humans and nature, and by nature as a symbolic source. While his imagery often draws from a kind of scientific categorization, it is not merely a depiction of nature for its own sake. Instead, nature serves as a canvas on which to project the subconscious and emotions, a stage for metaphors. Persson’s work features objects or fragments of nature to which he has a special connection or with which he grew up. The subject can also be stories or fantasies that are loaded with something that concerns him personally.

Persson has long worked with silicone rubber casts, which he paints from the inside to achieve the right organic appearance. Chance plays a crucial role in the creation of these sculptures and serves as an aesthetic expression in its own right. Persson is also known for his many public artworks in Sweden. Made from silicone or painted bronze and aluminium, the works convey playfulness, femininity, colour and conceptuality. Drawing is fundamental to Persson’s practice. He creates large-scale drawings on yellowed paper, meticulously composed with dots, depicting motifs such as cactuses, animal anatomy, or glass cabinets with skeletons inside. These drawings are a kind of complement to the sculptures, suggesting a scientific thrust or an explanation of something elusive.

Roland Persson (b. 1963) is based in Stockholm. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Umeå in 1993, and furthered his studies at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. Persson’s academic background is enriched by his interest in theoretical psychoanalysis, which is evident in the subconscious and analytical aspects of his work. Persson’s art has been showcased in solo and group exhibitions across the Nordic countries and Europe, as well as in Russia and Asia. In Finland, his work has been featured in museum exhibitions at Amos Rex and the HAM Helsinki Art Museum in 2024, and he had a solo exhibition at the Kuntsi Museum of Modern Art in Vaasa in 2023.