John Atherton

John Atherton

British, Lives and works in Gothenburg/Herrljunga, Sweden

This piece is a confrontation of the portrait, sitter, and subject. Detectable pieces of the self become distilled with every new layer of paper, cardboard, and misprinted imagery. We are given a considerable dose of confusion. The physicality of this rupture emphasizes the ephemeral nature of memory. The ‘original’ portrait of Lagerholm (the unidentified subject) is sourced from a 87’ yearbook in rural Sweden. Thus, John’s piece becomes a fragment of a fragment. We may ask, has the subject somehow been preserved? What nuance is applied with these discarded, found, or recycled items? Where this process may imply erasure, John has found new memories.

We are provoked and speculative at the same time by this gradual anonymity. John insists that we look for a personal exchange with the image. John is inspired by the sculptures of John Chamberlain and paintings of John Hoyland. Following their treatment of the portrait, John is intrigued by the abstraction and revision that projects from the anti-portrait.