*

"This series of works are consistently staying inside the field of portraiture and the figurative, but aren't really portraits of spesific or existing persons. They are rather focusing on a mental and emotional underlying content. You could therefore think of them as portraits of states of mind. During the working process the artist manipulates the pictures by mixing and putting together parts of different photographs, with elements from the nature or by drawing directly from his head. Not by using photoshop, but by using free hand drawing."

In his portraits Johannes Høie finds interest in outsiders and certain vaguely defined youth communities one can find in the western world, both in urban and rural localities. There is a harsness treated into the soft colourpencil shadings wich conjures strong intensity and emotions. An ambiguity and discomfort occurs in those opposites, but also in the subtle absurdity Høie puts into his images. The expressional qualities of drawing is the main focus in this series and how the expressional can communicate in subtle and profound ways on to the viewer. In this there is narrative potential wich is redeemed in manic details and the emphasis of the characthers, their facial expressions, their clothing and cultural codes.