Emil Z Ekberg

The work is part of a series that metaphorically treated stories from Emil Ekberg's and his wife's family from the 1930s onwards, focusing on the Holocaust, porajmos, escape and activity in resistance movements.

"In my artistic practice, I have worked progressively with the medium of drawing, developing my own techniques within drawing collage and experimenting with digitized drawings, AI, and projections.

As an artist, I always strive to create images that challenge what drawing is and can be. I see expanding and evolving the concept of drawing as an important task, and I always want to work progressively at the boundaries of the concept’s limits.

In my visual world, I often use animals and landscapes as metaphors for people, human situations, and emotions. In my images, I juxtapose contrasting concepts—often charged with opposing meanings—such as the beautiful and grandiose against the dark and threatening. The drawings are often filled with animals, each carrying its own symbolism and cultural significance. In my images, they become metaphors and actors in scenes about humanity, our civilization in both its brightest and darkest forms, and its ongoing decay.

At its core, my work and artistic practice are existential and contemporary in nature, as my images can be seen as modern memento mori in an era where the free world has never been closer to collapse."

(Emil Z Ekberg, Artworks.se)