People that share things are sharers. Billekvist tells me about being handed a bag of Nokia, model 3310 phone cases, deemed castaways or trials, worthy of the appreciation of some 12 year olds in Sweden. He notes: “before the camera phone”. As he is telling me this, I interpret the early-mid 2000s phone cases as trading cards: swift and conversational, light. Not carelessly, but as if someone is urging you to take the hand-me-down only if you actually want it. The phone cover should be equal parts representative and easy to let go of.

Click—that aluminium frame becomes a bit coy. As a protection it does not conceal much, acknowledging the holes in some so-called secure things in life. It could protect the next painting down the line, pairings made in modules. The protected works are 70 x 60cm, scaled up from the species of notebooks like; a diary, a daybook, simply a lockable notebook. That root becomes an important mechanical step for my eye: in between the 
aluminum casing, trapped between the casing, a canvas and the animation of material in liquid state. Suction
makes a mark, an image and is that mechanic remembering how it is to be 12? In 2022, Billekvist presented a series of paintings containing motifs drawn from his grandmother’s embroidery book. Notably, the book has
mysteriously disappeared since, however those embroidery patterns are still in circulation in these paintings.

Billekvist has previously presented a series of works which has various robust textiles stretched against a precise, steamed wood frame. Effectively skeletal with an attention to the backs of the objects. Today he doesn’t show us the backs of these works but that imaginary, uncontrollable act, sort of forms itself and burns in the retina. What occurs between stiffened surface, liquid, canvas, aluminium, drives individual and successive animations which are both some and all of; fast, slow, jerky or glacial.

There is some surprise in Billekvist’s tone when he comes to think about Jugendstil in relation to the aluminum 
frames. The ability to curve cast iron, glass, steel affected exteriors and interiors at the movement’s advent, starting a trend for lighter more organic interiors. For this show, Billekvist has worked with the metal construction workshop called Bolt located in Ekeberg, Oslo, to execute his designs in aluminum. Aside from what a protection is to a painting, these aluminum frames assert exteriority or, what a window says about the inside.

Roles reversed; to paint with liquid aluminium and that big maneuver. That big maneuver is robust and fragile which liquid aluminium possesses of itself and you. You, is exactly what it’s detritus has too little of, Billekvist expresses to me. He doesn’t care to dote on that heap of hardened drips, its too self-centred.

Fade proof external aluminum are some of Billekvist’s smallest works to date. That isn’t such a crucial fact because these works don’t really stop when they’re told to stop. Concentrated events can be heavy, speak for themselves, and in few words become louder, catch cumulus, stratus, nimbus! Here is some weather.

-Echo Gielle

Joel Billekvist (f. 1992, Sverige) har stilt ut på VRB gallery, Kösk, Hos Arne og Coulisse galleri. Akkurat nå undersøker Billekvist hvordan man kan definere forsiden/baksiden av et maleri. Materialer som high-tech, ripstop og transparente tekstiler brukes som ukonvensjonelt lerret. Interessen for spennramme og tekstil som en del av 
manifestasjonen av et maleri som et fysisk objekt har dukket opp gjennom prosjekter som Soft On Soft, der
Billekvist jobbet med mykt oljekritt på gjennomsiktig netting. Permeabiliteten til materialet gjør at betrakteren
kan fornemme konturene av spenningsrammen som et skjelett under tynn hud. Dermed utfordrer verkene
grensen mellom front og bak, interiør og eksteriør, og overskrider den todimensjonaliteten til maleriets medium.