ULTRACRAFT Exhibition at TAD

ULTRACRAFT, Nikolai Gyllenhammar, 2025.

Ultracraft explores extreme materiality. Across several series of works, NIX presents an innovative formal language and a versatile artistic practice. The variation in form, colour, and technique reflects the artist’s investigation of the inherent properties of materials. This pursuit of innovation has resulted in unexpected material combinations that challenge the viewer.

“I want the viewer to experience the works physically and spatially — as much as to see them,” the artist states. Form and colour constitute the primary components of the works, with a strong emphasis on texture and tactile qualities.

The fibre cement works — a robust and weather-resistant material — are pushed to their aesthetic and functional limits through the artist’s craftsmanship. The oscillation between abstraction and figuration deprioritises symbolism and narrative, allowing the formal language to foreground a tactile and sensorial encounter with the work.

NIX’s diverse formal vocabulary is further articulated in a series based on the analogue manipulation of photography. The photographs are processed using the artist’s self-developed technique, in which epoxy is transformed into glass-like and leaded-glass-inspired compositions. Each image is sourced from established photographic artists or emerging talents, as selected by NIX.

The synthesis of paintings, mosaics, cement-based sculptural works, and ambitious photographic light works constitutes Ultracraft — an exhibition that invites a sensorial and tactile engagement, where materiality and craftsmanship open up new ways of experiencing the material and emotional dimensions of art.

The exhibition is curated by Ludvig Mpagi.