Jokum Lind Jensen

Artist statement:

I think, or maybe rather I sense, that my objects force, or the presence they have in any given surrounding, is connected primarily with the directed and contemplated force involved in making them. The material I use is dead to me, or at least slumbering, before it is heated and worked, molded, forced into the shapes that I try to control, but that to some extents are unpredictable and uncontrollable within my work process.

Involved in the making are many considerations about line, composition, color, size, weight etc. but underlying all that is a longing from my side to find and expose a dark, heavy, all-embracing, intense presence, that to me is the epitome of the force of the object.

Describe the process; who, what, why, where, when, how and with what help: 

All my work stems from an exploration of the material´s soul within the hot forging process, combined with a drive to find new ways to expose and apply the traditional blacksmithing techniques.

 I want to expose the compactness, the darkness, the rigidness, and the weight of the material until a point where it becomes monumental. At the same time there is an almost fleshy delicacy and sensuousness in the hot forged shapes, a tactility that talks about the liquid nature of the material. I see the material and forging process as a self-contained end mean of my investigation. And at the same time as a medium for a larger narrative, A narrative about the uncontrollable vastness of the natural world surrounding us in time and space.

The power hammer is my ally, it extends my possibilities, it gives me new ways of manipulating the material, it gives me force. 

About the artist – BIO or short version of Curriculum Vitae:

Jokum Lind Jensen is a Danish blacksmith living and working in western Sweden. Having completed an HND at Herefordshire College of Art 1997 he set up his own workshop I Copenhagen, working mainly as a restoration blacksmith. From 2010 to 2014 he finished both a BA and a MAA at HDK- Valand/Metal art, Sweden. Since 2017 he lives in Fengersfors, Sweden, where he divides his time between teaching at various universities and craft schools, researching historical metalwork, making contemporary crafts objects, and undertaking various commissions both private and public.