Ma
Linda Morell & Nils Ekman
22. – 24. May 2026

Ma (間) is a Japanese concept representing negative space, an interval or a pause, often translated as “the space between”. Rather than empty nothingness, it is considered a meaningful, energetic void. 

Ma is also commonly the first word spoken. In their duo-exhibition Ma Nils Ekman and Linda Morell present works situated between the organic and the mechanical. 

Primogenitus Flos by Nils Ekman consists of a series of detailed colored-pencil drawings based on a digitally constructed object: a glass-like, bodily, and flower-like form, modeled by fusing various 3D-scanned material. The object has been rendered from various angles and sections before being printed in black and white on watercolor paper. The intentionally faint prints function as vague underpaintings for the subsequent layers of colored pencil, which are slowly and methodically developed by hand. Through this time-consuming drawing process, a singular pictorial space emerges in which the mathematical exactitude of the render is dissolved by the tentative movement of the hand.

Linda Morell’s hand-built ceramic sculptures use the circle as a foundational form and have been carved through repeated subtractions of material. The relief-like works in the series Súper evoke both rosette stucco ornaments and industrial components or mechanical structures. Their rhythmic patterns refer simultaneously to function and ornament, to the ways repetition is used to create stability, movement, and recognition. Within the works, borrowing their titles from the word for rival or contender, the rational and the decorative converge into a shared visual language in which function turns into decoration and decoration suggests function. Across the surface, irregular blooms of metallic and crystalline glazes interrupt the systematic nature of the forms and foreground traces of the hand’s presence.

Linda Morell (b.1993) lives and works in Malmö. She holds a master’s degree in visual arts from the Faculty of Art, Music, and Design at the University of Bergen and a bachelor’s degree from The Art Academy in Umeå. 

Nils Ekman (b.1990) lives and works in Malmö. He holds a master’s degree in visual arts from Malmö Art Academy and a bachelor’s degree from The Art Academy in Umeå.