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The Fantastical Worlds of Kim Simonsson

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Category: Exhibit
Start date: 20 Apr 2018 12:00 PM
End date: 15 Jul 2018 12:00 PM
Street / Location: 2600 Park Avenue
City / town: Minneapolis
Country: Minnesota, USA
Organizer: American Swedish Institute
Email: info@asimn.org
Homepage: https://www.asimn.org/exhibitions-collections/exhibitions/fantastical-worlds-kim-simonsson

First Look Opening: Friday, April 20.

Sculptor Kim Simonsson of Fiskars, Finland, crafts innocent, yet beguiling life-sized figures of child and animals in "moss-covered" ceramics, often found in natural settings that lead the viewer into an imaginative, fairytale-like world inspired by the forests of Finland.

The American Swedish Institute exhibition will be a captivating display of 35 selections of Simonsson's work on view in ASI's contemporary Osher Gallery, and throughout the historic Turnblad Mansion. The artworks can be assembled into various compilations depending on the space, so the ASI setting will really tranform into the Fantastical Worlds of Kim Simonsson.

Selected as one of Artnet's "Nine Fascinating Objects" at 2016 Design Miami, the "Moss People" sculptures are the result of a unique technique combining stoneware, paint and green nylon fiber, which gives the figures their smooth and mossy surface. Every sculpture is handmade and created in the artist's studio in Fiskars Village.

Simonsson's work illustrates the Moss People community, with reason to believe that the children living in the forest have experienced difficult rites of passage as part of their growth and development. If you had to draw comparisons, Simonsson’s works evoke an emotional sense of a world concocted from a cross between Alice in Wonderland and Lord of the Flies with a splash of Peter Pan and the Hunger Games. The children and animals he depicts are at once whimsical and evocative, yet lonely and, yes, slightly disturbing. They exude a sense of determined strength.