Mats Bergquist

Svezia • Sweden

Words cannot explain everything [...]. But there is a point when uttering a word equals to removing infinite expressive possibilities [...].

To write about Bergquist’s works is like uttering a word, a unique word embracing everything [...].

As I entered the location where some of Bergquist’s works were exhibited, I felt a scent of wooden boards and color, an antique scent [...]. It was the scent of icons, of which I perceived the sense, as if, once every figurative and allegoric element was removed, only the endless dialogue with the beyond, with other space, was left.

Once everything is removed, only a flimsy veneer of dialogue, of affection, towards something anonymous is left. It is in this dialogue that I see emerging an unexpected presence that can’t find space in classic icons [...]. The shadow is the element better representing the solidity of the matter, the human manifestation contrasting with the divine presence, now emerging [...].

It is a dialogue venturing in a land between the here and there, as the connection in the Byzantine basilicas between the round cupola and the square base, an architectural therefore theological problem. In the resulting space a connection figure is born. In that angle, in the Byzantine and Christian iconography, we find the angel, a figure set among sky, circle, earth and square.

[...] This is the sacred iconographic space, implying a duality between sky and earth, an antique perspective, on which Mats Bergquist moves with respect, silence and subtlety - a space in which also words stop, in which every instant of dialogue with it is sacred and tells us of another eternal, deep and absolute beyond.

Marco Mioli