Jannik Abel
- Artist and Public Speaker
April 2019: Podcast with Jannik out now. You find it here.
"To make art that reminds us of who we are -that is my mission."
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ART CHOSE ME
I did not choose art. Art chose me. When thinking of words to describe the development of the Norwegian artist Jannik Abel, these are the words that first come to mind. Her statements concerning art and its position in the western contemporary society are bold, yet most effectively; extremely honest.‘I believe art is more important than artists.’‘I believe there is no bad art, if it is bad, it is not art.’‘I believe art comes from an honest place of vulnerability and strength.’
ARTICLE IN G&E ART MAGAZINE, SPAIN BY MARTE ELISABETH PAULSSEN
Jannik Abel is an artist who shows a rare sense of responsibility linked to the role of the artist; she is a street artist, a painter, a print maker and an installation artist. She is all of those things and she is none of those things; she is – and not as simple as it may appear – an artist. She has no need for labels; her work is about creating and expressing ideas of observation. The statements and the ideas of Jannik Abel describes an artist with an articulated desire to communicate in order to evolve, to develop, to grow, and to use these ideas in her own practice. She is one of a selected few artists who not only create, but also aims to somehow influence communities with the fundamental ideas inherit in her pieces.
This is also reflected in other statements made about the artist. Kunstverket Galleri is one of the leading galleries for contemporary graphic prints in Nordic region. The Director of the gallery, Petter U. Morken describes the artist and her contribution to the contemporary art scene in the following words: ‘Jannik is a unique artist, one we are very proud to represent. She is an artist always in search of truth and meaning in her work, and she dares to travel unconventional routes in order to find it. Despite her relatively young age, she has managed to develop an extraordinary and unique artistic voice. Her creativity and strong artistic sensibility is something she brings to the streets and to the galleries where she exhibits. She does not allow herself to be limited by physical nor social inhibitors; she chooses the material and the spaces that add meaning to her work. Her prints are of a unique character, where she looks and comments on contemporary society. As an artist she lives in her art, and her art lives within her – they coexist in a perfect symbiosis.’
No, Jannik Abel did not choose to be an artist; art chose her - to be a marker of sorts – as someone who looks at the world and reports back. As someone who leaves traces in the streets and statements in the gallery.
Jannik Abel’s contribution as an artist and printmaker is most importantly one of a developed consciousness towards the role which is being played out in society by artists working with various media and techniques. An aspect of the art scene she has been aware of and interested in from an early age. She grew up in the city of Oslo, and she grew up surrounded by art, something which has been a great influence to her work. Her legacy is that of one of the longest running art dealers in Norway; Abels Kunsthandel. She therefore developed, early on, a love affair with art, making the road from Oslo to San Francisco – where she enrolled in courses of photography and silkscreen printing- a short journey across two large continents.
After graduating from the Academy of Art College in San Francisco, Jannik went on to enrol at San Francisco Art Institute. After graduation she took a close look at the world and decided that there is so much art in the streets that most of us are unaware of, and decided to report back. She continued to develop her artistic practice from photography and silkscreen printing to street art and painting on canvas, yet photography and silkscreen is something she is continuously working on today. The one returning constant in her work is the use of the city. Jannik describes herself that the city remains consistent in her work as ‘the city is where I can hide, play, observe and be around people without interacting with them. Art functions a lot like the city that way; I can talk in a visual language, be seen and understood without the pressure of one-on-one contact. I had an idea to paint the city with its industrial scene as I was drawn to areas which were part of the city, yet secluded from it at the same time. The cranes, the docks, the warehouses were all places I could be alone – I felt safe, I felt alive and I felt creative.’
Being an artist using the city as a canvas through a wide variety of outlets, such as street art and photography, working with silkscreen prints would seem like a natural choice for developing a practice of printmaking. For Jannik, however, it is the inherit properties of the techniques that decide the method used for each individual image. But as an artist aware of the responsibility of communicating art to its audience, Jannik explains that her choice of working first and foremost with silkscreen prints is its properties as the modern version of stencil – “possibly the first toolkit for making art ever created by human beings”. “Although, the method can be quite rigid, I create space to act freely by pushing the template with acrylic paint through the cloth, getting a repeated pattern over and over again, as a unique perpetual line. Which is a feature demonstrated in the Earth City series.”
The Earth Series are Jannik’s latest ventures into printmaking. This is the fifth series of silkscreens in her career, representing a change in topics she wants to address via the series. The series portray trees, sky, planet earth, sun and water, and all prints evolve around the theme of respect, sharing and co-creation while living on earth. Jannik explains herself that in recent times, she has become increasingly aware of the issue of how we choose to live on earth, and how we choose to treat earth while we are coexisting with it. In a way, the series culminate in in the fifth series, and from there takes on a different form. The other 4 series Jannik has developed in the course of her career, the Archive, City Stills, Hello…My Name Is and Anniversary Prints, all share the fact that she develops forms based on ideas of honesty, openness, what she sees and what she hears. In the latest series, she moves from a view of the world as people inhabiting cities, where she now looks at how the people inhabit the world. There are more people living in the cities than in the peripheries, and as a consequence the boundaries between people dissolve. Constructing cities also means that we are constructing a world without clear boundaries.
In a sense, Jannik Abel has continued on the legacy of Diogenes of ancient Greece in his saying ‘I am a citizen of the world’[1]. And as a citizen of the world, the option of where to go from now, seems endless. One can only wait patiently to see what Jannik sees in her next project.
ARTICLE IN G&E ART MAGAZINE, SPAIN BY MARTE ELISABETH PAULSSEN
Jannik Abel is an artist who shows a rare sense of responsibility linked to the role of the artist; she is a street artist, a painter, a print maker and an installation artist. She is all of those things and she is none of those things; she is – and not as simple as it may appear – an artist. She has no need for labels; her work is about creating and expressing ideas of observation. The statements and the ideas of Jannik Abel describes an artist with an articulated desire to communicate in order to evolve, to develop, to grow, and to use these ideas in her own practice. She is one of a selected few artists who not only create, but also aims to somehow influence communities with the fundamental ideas inherit in her pieces.
This is also reflected in other statements made about the artist. Kunstverket Galleri is one of the leading galleries for contemporary graphic prints in Nordic region. The Director of the gallery, Petter U. Morken describes the artist and her contribution to the contemporary art scene in the following words: ‘Jannik is a unique artist, one we are very proud to represent. She is an artist always in search of truth and meaning in her work, and she dares to travel unconventional routes in order to find it. Despite her relatively young age, she has managed to develop an extraordinary and unique artistic voice. Her creativity and strong artistic sensibility is something she brings to the streets and to the galleries where she exhibits. She does not allow herself to be limited by physical nor social inhibitors; she chooses the material and the spaces that add meaning to her work. Her prints are of a unique character, where she looks and comments on contemporary society. As an artist she lives in her art, and her art lives within her – they coexist in a perfect symbiosis.’
No, Jannik Abel did not choose to be an artist; art chose her - to be a marker of sorts – as someone who looks at the world and reports back. As someone who leaves traces in the streets and statements in the gallery.
Jannik Abel’s contribution as an artist and printmaker is most importantly one of a developed consciousness towards the role which is being played out in society by artists working with various media and techniques. An aspect of the art scene she has been aware of and interested in from an early age. She grew up in the city of Oslo, and she grew up surrounded by art, something which has been a great influence to her work. Her legacy is that of one of the longest running art dealers in Norway; Abels Kunsthandel. She therefore developed, early on, a love affair with art, making the road from Oslo to San Francisco – where she enrolled in courses of photography and silkscreen printing- a short journey across two large continents.
After graduating from the Academy of Art College in San Francisco, Jannik went on to enrol at San Francisco Art Institute. After graduation she took a close look at the world and decided that there is so much art in the streets that most of us are unaware of, and decided to report back. She continued to develop her artistic practice from photography and silkscreen printing to street art and painting on canvas, yet photography and silkscreen is something she is continuously working on today. The one returning constant in her work is the use of the city. Jannik describes herself that the city remains consistent in her work as ‘the city is where I can hide, play, observe and be around people without interacting with them. Art functions a lot like the city that way; I can talk in a visual language, be seen and understood without the pressure of one-on-one contact. I had an idea to paint the city with its industrial scene as I was drawn to areas which were part of the city, yet secluded from it at the same time. The cranes, the docks, the warehouses were all places I could be alone – I felt safe, I felt alive and I felt creative.’
Being an artist using the city as a canvas through a wide variety of outlets, such as street art and photography, working with silkscreen prints would seem like a natural choice for developing a practice of printmaking. For Jannik, however, it is the inherit properties of the techniques that decide the method used for each individual image. But as an artist aware of the responsibility of communicating art to its audience, Jannik explains that her choice of working first and foremost with silkscreen prints is its properties as the modern version of stencil – “possibly the first toolkit for making art ever created by human beings”. “Although, the method can be quite rigid, I create space to act freely by pushing the template with acrylic paint through the cloth, getting a repeated pattern over and over again, as a unique perpetual line. Which is a feature demonstrated in the Earth City series.”
The Earth Series are Jannik’s latest ventures into printmaking. This is the fifth series of silkscreens in her career, representing a change in topics she wants to address via the series. The series portray trees, sky, planet earth, sun and water, and all prints evolve around the theme of respect, sharing and co-creation while living on earth. Jannik explains herself that in recent times, she has become increasingly aware of the issue of how we choose to live on earth, and how we choose to treat earth while we are coexisting with it. In a way, the series culminate in in the fifth series, and from there takes on a different form. The other 4 series Jannik has developed in the course of her career, the Archive, City Stills, Hello…My Name Is and Anniversary Prints, all share the fact that she develops forms based on ideas of honesty, openness, what she sees and what she hears. In the latest series, she moves from a view of the world as people inhabiting cities, where she now looks at how the people inhabit the world. There are more people living in the cities than in the peripheries, and as a consequence the boundaries between people dissolve. Constructing cities also means that we are constructing a world without clear boundaries.
In a sense, Jannik Abel has continued on the legacy of Diogenes of ancient Greece in his saying ‘I am a citizen of the world’[1]. And as a citizen of the world, the option of where to go from now, seems endless. One can only wait patiently to see what Jannik sees in her next project.