Regular Irregularities

As technology speeds us steadily along, we often look ahead, but don't really take the time to look over our shoulder at everything we've left behind. VHS tapes, engines, CDs take their place in electronic cemeteries, stripped of functionality, only their forms remain.

Michael Johansson's art work captures these strange yet regular, or inevitable transitions. (I remember living in Sri Lanka and wondering why plastic Santas appeared on the sides of dusty roads in January/February, and was told that the country was a dumping ground for unwanted/unused goods from other countries).

There is something arresting about the way in which he removes objects from their environments and contexts; something haunting about the repetition and regularity, the way that they're packed and unpacked, devoid of function, transformed into skeletal symmetrical shapes.

Johansson states that, "I am intrigued by irregularities in daily life. Not those that appear when something extraordinary occurs, but those that are created by an exaggerated form of regularity. Colours or patterns from two separate objects or environments concur, like when two people pass each other dressed in the exact same outfit. Or when you are switching channels on your TV and realize that the same actor is playing two different roles on two different channels at the same time. Or that one day the parking lot contained only red cars."