artist/ Dahlén

Suède

Jennie Dahlén is a Swedish artist born in 1978 in Karlstad, where she now lives and works. Her work explores the tensions between movement and stillness, presence and disappearance, through a visual language that is both minimalist and deeply sensitive.

Working primarily in charcoal on paper, she has developed a drawing practice characterized by restraint and precision. Her compositions, often dominated by vast areas of silence and incisive dark lines, evoke mountain landscapes reduced to their essence. The gesture is minimal, yet charged with intensity. Each mark seems to arise from necessity, leaving room for a breath where emptiness plays as significant a role as the material itself.

Mountains have occupied a central place in the artist’s work since her stay in the French Alps. They become mental as well as physical forms, oscillating between stability and transformation. Through the interplay of contrasts, gradations and erasures, Jennie suggests their slow metamorphosis and apparent permanence, inviting silent contemplation.

Her approach is also informed by a Japanese sensibility, evident in her economy of means, her attention to gesture, and her emphasis on negative space. Her practice of karate subtly influences her relationship with concentration, balance, and the mastery of movement. This inner discipline is reflected in her works, where each intervention seems suspended in a state of perfect balance.

Her work thus offers a meditative experience, where the gaze unfolds slowly, between tension and calm.