Jonny Forsström

Jonny Forsström (born 1944) is a self-taught Swedish picture artist, sculptor, and film maker.

He has delivered a swarm of uninhibited, colorful, and fun-loving stories through his colorful art since the mid-1960s. His art is innovative and fantasy based painting motifs in very strong colors. The challenge is to reach beyond technically skillful artistry to obtain a direct and true expression. His art contains family members, friends, moose, exotic animals, strange primitive creatures, morphing characters, ensouled trees, and nature in theatrical settings. Strange occurrences, movements, gestures and relationship build energy, drama, and expectations in the pictures that leave them open and enigmatic.

His creativity flow always starts with quick sketch and animation; usually at night when his inner censorship is at its lowest threshold.

He does not believe in what he sees or touch. He only believes in what he does not see but can still feel. It is the feeling of the wonderful world of fantasy where it all happens. He hopes that his images transport people to that other place.

Jonny was borne in Stora Möckleby, Öland, Sweden, but he grew up in the mining town Malmberget, Lappland, Sweden. Jonny got glasses as a six-year-old, and in the 1950s that was a sure sign of weakness that would rule out soccer and wild kids' play. But for the first time, he got to see things clearly and he could be a by-standing voyeur taking note of people's gestures.

He had a variety of jobs after his school years; he was a sailor, a shipyard worker, in the hotel business in Gothenburg and Stockholm, and barely got by. His newly discovery of art gave him hope and a new sense of freedom, a new awakening of the world.

• 1990 Parafras Piero della Francesca, Konsthallen Trollhättan, Sweden
• 2006 Konsthallen Trollhättan, Sweden. Various oil, sketches, aquarelle and sculpture.

• Gabrielle Bryers Gallery, New York, USA
• Northern Light Ltd. California, USA
• Galerie Studio Four, London, ENGLAND
• Gallerie Bleu, Paris, FRANCE
• Galerie Peuples et Continents, Bryssel, BELGIUM
• Art 76, Basel, SWITZERLAND
• Galleri Otenti, Antwerp, HOLLAND
• Galeri Arnesen, Copenhagen, DENMARK
• Art Now Gallery, Gothenburg, SWEDEN

His inspirations in the late 1960s were Carl-Henning Pedersen and Asger Jorn; a brightly hued, billowing and undulating style.

Early 1970s the trend was childishly smeared colorful baseball bats and daring figures in the form of octopuses. Some figures had the ability to fly to escape fences. Gauguin’s interest in the “innocence” of the native Tahitians. Soutine with his distorted physiofnomies. De Kooning and his sprawling grimacing bodies. Pollock’s convulsed “dripping.” Jonny points to a book of Marino Marini’s paintings from the 1960s and suggests “They are just like Baselintz and Lupertz, only twenty years earlier” and “Nolde and Kirchner are really primitive,” which is a high praise of Jonny’s. Roberto Matta’s almost electric colors. Jonny once watched Malcolm Morley paint in his New York studio.