“ARK is the Swedish word for ‘sheet of paper’ and each piece is sculpted by hand using various types of paper and layers of paint. Paper as a medium is both playful, creative and interesting, and a given choice when the shapes of the forest are to be interpreted in the works .The material's natural connection to the trees creates a movement from the source of origin to the canvas and the circle is thereby closed.”

The ARK-series interprets a broad spectrum of the forest's different patterns and structures,  tracing back to tree knots, roots and stems, where the latter has a specific series of its own, ARK STAM (the Swedish word for ’stem’):

"My hope is that the work will take the viewer out into the soothing rooms of the forest and help calm the thought with its tactility and elegance. Can you feel the forest the way I did? If so, the art has turned into a language of its own, telling stories about the forest I once visited. The artwork becomes the link that takes the viewer on a tactile journey to the very same place, regardless of time and space.”

Jessica Granlund (b.1985) is a self-taught, intuitive paper artist from Växjö in the southern part of Sweden, who uses the surrounding Swedish forests as the major source of inspiration in her art process:

”On my strolls in the Swedish forests, I absorb the patterns, textures and forms and bring these impressions with me back to the studio. I am interested in the tactile experience of the forest and investigate this in my mixed media artwork.”

Jessica has a Master in Education. She previously worked as an upper secondary school teacher of the Swedish- and the English language, but today she is navigating her need of expressing herself creatively under her artist alias Work of ARK. She has always been interested in the concept of form and context in her language teaching, something that directly translates into her work of art today.