The abandoned factory is full of traces and marks of the industry; the functions and activities that the factory was created for. Even the building itself is such a trace of a bygone era an activity that has ceased. An empty space shaped around something that is no longer there, an enormous imprint made of brick, wood and steel.

Although a trace is not necessarily permanent, it is determined by what left it. Your boot in the mud, for instance, leaves a print of a fixed size, your shoe size, the pressure, consistency of the mud etc are factors which, as long as they remain the same always yield the same result. When you raise your voice and shout into the void of the old factory the echo is of a predetermined tone and duration. A trace like an echo is a determinate effect tied to a cause.

The production which was the cause of the factory; which required certain rooms, dimensions, fixtures and materials has ceased. Through time the traces have been released or loosened from what made them. They are opened to new meanings and relations; to interpretation. The artwork introduced into the factory reimagines its function and rewrites its history. Art bends the space around it and in a way the factory becomes elastic, an elastic trace.

- Nils Svensk, curator.

Fifty paintings inspired by my visits to Gislaved Konsthall in January 2023. Displayed chronologically, each work is chain-linked and related to its neighbours. Some were completed from memory, some from photographs. When painting from memory, colour choice and decisions about form seemed to come from my subconscious, created instinctively and as a reaction to the time spent at the site.

Walking through the space, the atmosphere changes noticeably from room to room. Temperature fluctuates, air quality alters. My focus was to capture the essence of the factory and attempt to recreate the atmosphere of the site. The colours used reflect the surrounding space. The colour of the wall the paintings are displayed on is reflected in some of the works. When this part of the factory was open, boots and galoshes were manufactured, and the form of boots appears periodically throughout the paintings.

In completing this work, I felt it essential to put myself in the role of a factory worker. The people who laboured here repeated a process over and over - the paintings are repeated in small format and large volume. I invite you, through the paintings and the atmosphere that still exists in this space, to explore the location, while reflecting on the lives that were led and the work that was completed here over so many years.

Gislaved #20