Not too perfect

The Audi Magazine: Art is like a kind of calling card for its creator. What do you want viewers to take away from your drawings?

Anne-Li Karlsson: My work falls into two categories: On the one hand, I do commission illustration work for clients such as magazines and corporations. The main goal here is to use illustrations to capture and project stories or information. These drawings fulfill a certain purpose and follow the given specifications. When I work on my own projects with no such specifications, different, mostly black-and-white drawings emerge. Images with some flaws and rough edges. I love being a bit provocative with these illustrations, challenging the viewer.

What do you find attractive about these imperfections?

I personally find things that aren’t completely flawless more interesting than ones without a single blemish. For me, rough edges are a part of life. Maybe it’s also my artistic contribution in opposition to minimalism, which is so revered in Sweden. It’s a thread that effectively weaves through everything: design, architecture, fashion. Tidy, clean and expressed in muted colors. A lot of people like this style, but it doesn’t appeal to me. I’m more of a collector. Despite that, I find the development fascinating. Sweden is a country with a large stature compared to its population size. And although there is so much space between the major conurbations, what dominates is a certain standardized sameness. But the mute backdrop lets us carve out a niche where we can show individuality—with accessories. A friend of mine wears brightly colored socks under black suits to her job. I do it my way: with the interior design of my apartment. Which is the opposite of minimalist.

You have a large bookcase in your living room. And you mainly draw with pencil on paper. You seem to have an affinity for the analog world.

Yes, that’s true. I like the sensation of touching paper and the feeling of producing a result by hand with a pencil. I also like the fact that analog depictions are not always perfect. Like when a line is not completely straight. In the digital world, the way machines work generally precludes this type of imperfection. Algorithms ensure that the results are very precise. And, of course, that’s critical in many spheres—but not in all. A picture that is too perfect can be jarring and rob our imagination of the ability to freely form associations with the perceived image. Perfect things often appear immutable and hence untouchable.

Has digitalization influenced your artistic expression?

In some ways, yes. The majority of my work is analog. Nonetheless, the digital does make its presence felt. For one, communication has become digital, whether I am contacting my agent or people interested in my art. I also have to send most completed projects to the client as a digital file. The times when artists delivered work in large portfolios or envelopes are long gone.

You started drawing relatively late. At what point did you realize that you wanted to devote yourself to art?

My first big job was illustrating an article in the Swedish magazine Darling on the topic of pornography. The rest is history, as they say. In the early days, the magazine was a trailblazer with its progressive visual idiom and a sassy linguistic style.

The paper city you created for Audi did not have to be mailed when it was done. How did you approach this project?

The entire assignment was sort of a group project brought to fruition by a multi-member team. There were people who took care of building the cityscape, while others created the lighting or tracks for the camera. Ultimately, the whole project was to be captured on film. My job was to design the city—so naturally, I had to think first about the style for designing my urban space.

What criteria did you use to make that decision?

In the beginning, I took various approaches. But it quickly became clear to me that the purely electric Audi should not be driving through a futuristic world. The move toward alternative drive systems is happening now and will be stepped up in the near future. So, I chose to place the vehicle in a modern-day cityscape. My inspiration was drawn from my hometown of Stockholm and other Scandinavian cities.

Paper, a small battery, a special pen and a miniature Audi: This is the combination you used to light up buildings and streetlamps. How did you connect the electric circuit?

The power supply for the paper city was a small e-tron battery. I used a pen filled with special ink to link the battery’s contact points with those of the individual stations – just like a utility would lay power cables. When the vehicle drives by, the final contact is made. The electricity then flows, and the city lights up block by block.

What challenges did you face with the building project?

Although the paper city is a miniature, the whole thing was very much like a large-scale project. Every single aspect had to be meticulously planned and precisely executed—the structure of the city, all the tiny details and the lines’ paths. Naturally, over the two weeks it took to create the paper city, there were things that didn’t work right off the bat. The first tests that the team and I ran were with facade prototypes. Often just applying trial and error.

The Swedish artist used electric ink to draw the lines making up the paper city’s electric grid. The “Electric Story” video showcases the electrifying interplay between modern-day mobility and urban spaces.

In 2018, Audi is focusing on electric mobility: The first purely electric production car rolls off the production line in Brussels.