Billekvist works on both sides of his paintings using watercolour, kabric, lacquer and oil on top of textiles: raw cotton, Trevia voile, and rip-stop. The semi-transparency of some of these textiles means that not only is the stretcher frame visible underneath, but also the paint he’s applied from the other side. His compositions then, are read as an accumulation of layers: sweeping gestures, dense passages, drawings of remembered spaces and traces of the artist’s thinking. The composition is often cleaved with a vertical line, suggesting depth. There is something close, there is something far away (or is it the other way round?)

This ambiguity is furthered by the artist’s invitation to the viewer to interact with the installation. These are not paintings hung on a wall in a pre-determined order. Pulling out these aluminum walls in a sequence the viewer determines themselves keeps the installation in flux. The paintings, moving in relation to one another within the open structure of the installation, create new, larger images and open up to new possibilities and readings.

In today’s art market, many collectors keep their high-value art collections in duty-free zones called freeports. There, artworks can be stored, sold and bought without needing to pay customs. The writings of artist Hito Steyerl, an important reference for Billekvist, describe the freeport condition: artworks frozen in storage as mere assets, locked away from view, from experience, and from meaning. The movement from gallery to storage space marks the crossing of the threshold from artistic value to mere asset. His installation occupies this threshold.

By placing his paintings in a structure that blurs the boundary between storage and exhibition, the artist holds them in limbo. Front is permeable to back, staged is permeable to unposed. In “Cul-de-sac,” the painting’s role is shifting and ambiguous. Billekvist invites us to pull his works into view.

Joel Billekvist (f. 1992, Sweden) holds a BFA from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHiO). Recent solo exhibitions include Ditte Lauridsen Gallery, Stockholm (2025); Kösk, Oslo (2025); VRB Gallery, Berlin (2023); and Podium, Oslo (2021). Billekvist lives and works in Oslo.