Everything Hidden Inside Kahlo

At first glance, Kahlo may look like one large collage. But look a little closer and you’ll discover that almost every small detail has a story of its own.

That is what I love about collage. A picture can become a place where completely different moments, places and people from your life meet.

The shapes that look like Chinese umbrellas are actually the ceiling of the lobby at Liseberg Grand Curiosa Hotel in Gothenburg. The golden lettering is the floor at Oslo Airport, Gardermoen. Frida Kahlo herself came from a wall in the old town of Alicante.

The little blue bird is from the entrance staircase of one of my best friends in Gothenburg. The rabbit was painted by my son when he was ten years old, on a wall during Konstrundan on Österlen.

The dotted pattern has a much more ordinary story. I took the photograph early one morning at Copenhagen Airport, before the shops had opened. I photographed through the security grilles into a store — and suddenly the grille, the light and everything behind it became a pattern I wanted to keep.

The old man sitting on Kahlo’s arm is a photograph I took in Cuba when I was around twenty-five. In Kahlo, he has become an angel.

In her ear is a small piece of street art from Copenhagen. The words Fuck Shit come from there too.

And then there is I love. It comes from a wall in Möllevången in Malmö where the words originally said, “I love your mother.” I only took one part of the sentence with me and put it by Kahlo's heart.

The mouth belongs to my daughter. It actually appears in another artwork, Same Old Bla Bla Bla, but here it is found in a completely different context.

And over everything, there is light from a photograph I took of a statue here in Höllviken, where I live. I extracted the light and turned it into a kind of pattern across Kahlo. It gives the work structure, but also something almost transparent — as if all the other memories are still lying underneath the surface.

So Kahlo is really not just an image of Frida Kahlo.

It is Gothenburg, Malmö, Copenhagen, Oslo, Kastrup, Alicante, Cuba and Österlen. It is my daughter and my son. A friend’s staircase. An old man I met many years ago. Places I have passed through and things I happened to notice.

Some of these images have been with me for thirty years.

Others were taken without me ever knowing that one day they would end up here.

Maybe that is one of the beautiful things about creating.

You never really know what a moment will become.