INTERVIEW
Marcus Wallinder
Meanwhile In Nowhere
Marcus Wallinder’s images inhabit unstable ground. Figures drift between realities while memory collides with the digital. His visual language feels distinctly post-digital—minimal yet textured, cinematic yet fractured, charged with an analogic sensibility that resists the screen’s smoothness.
In this conversation with G—G Generative Generation, Wallinder speaks about fragmentation as both subject and method, the influence of music and subcultures on his practice, and how generative tools shifted his work from documenting the world to shaping alternate ones—spaces where absence holds as much weight as presence, and ambiguity turns into its own form of clarity.
Artist
MARCUS WALLINDER
Lives
SWEDEN
Interview
G—G EDITORS
Published
FEBRUARY 2026
Art became the language I used
to explore things I couldn’t say out loud.
Artist
MARCUS WALLINDER
Lives
SWEDEN
Interview
G—G EDITORS
Published
FEBRUARY 2026
G—G
Art emerges from more than aesthetic choices. What first drove you to make it, and how did that impulse take shape?
MARCUS WALLINDER
Growing up with instability and loss taught me to use creativity as a way to cope. In a home shaped by addiction and the early loss of both parents, creativity became a survival mechanism—my way of processing chaos, memory, and identity. I never had much structure, so I built my own. That shows up in my work: there is always a sense of trying to hold together something fragmented. Art became the language I used to explore things I couldn’t say out loud. My process has shifted from documenting life to shaping a world of my own.
G—G
You describe holding together what’s fragmented. How does that impulse shape your understanding of the self in your work today?
MARCUS WALLINDER
Fragmentation is at the core of how I explore identity. In a time where we are always online, filtered, in a bubble, it becomes harder and harder to have a self. The recurring distortions are about how identity feels to me—layered, unstable, never one thing. It flickers in a state of flux. I often depict figures walking in surreal landscapes, as if lost between realities. There’s also a strong thread of irony, especially in my use of everyday phrases as titles.
G—G
Silence, absence, negative space—how do you allow emptiness to act as presence, or even as tension?
MARCUS WALLINDER
Visually, I use a lot of negative space, stark contrast, and emptiness—not just as an aesthetic, but as tension. It allows an image to breathe, to invite reflection rather than overload. What is not shown is sometimes louder than what is. Growing up in Sweden gave me a sense of spatial minimalism—letting things breathe, creating tension through silence and contrast. At the same time, my upbringing taught me to find meaning in broken and often unspoken things.
There’s something about blending
hard edges with dream logic that feels right.
Art became the language I used
to explore things I couldn’t say out loud.
It’s just a tool, like any other…
a ghost in the machine I wrestle with, listen to.
G—G
Collisions of texture, system, and meaning recur in your images. What keeps you drawn to them?
MARCUS WALLINDER
I am drawn to collisions, figurative and literal. I enjoy creating images that sit between beauty and discomfort, digital and organic, rawness and precision. I often return to brutalist forms, cyberpunk narratives, surrealist twists, and cinematic tension. There’s something about blending hard edges with dream logic that feels right. I love taking mundane, zeitgeisty objects and recontextualizing them into something eerie or poetic. A lot of what I do is intuitive, guided more by instinct than by rules. And sometimes I just want to create an interesting image. That’s all.
G—G
There’s something compelling about how you describe blending “hard edges with dream logic.” How do you think about the conceptual space your work inhabits—or does that kind of framing work against what you’re trying to achieve?
MARCUS WALLINDER
I try to resist fixed terms. “Techno-surrealism” comes close, but it still feels too rigid. My visual language lives between nostalgia and future anxiety, personal and digital, absurd and sincere. The moment I define it, it starts to die a little and bore me. I would rather let it keep shifting. I don’t belong to any particular tradition, but I’m building my own mythology: one that exists between nostalgia, future anxiety, and techno-surrealism.
G—G
Your way of seeing remains unmistakably photographic. What was the shift like—from documenting with a camera to co-creating with generative systems?
MARCUS WALLINDER
It was sudden. I got bored with what I was doing, and the technology had progressed far enough for me to shift gears. I was drawn to how a camera could freeze time, how framing reality could make the unseen visible. Photography taught me how to see and frame the world, but I started to crave more freedom. Later, as I began using generative tools, I found an unexpected freedom in co-creating with technology. It was no longer about capturing what’s there, but about generating something that used to be there. With generative systems I could create my own world, my own universe.
There’s something about blending
hard edges with dream logic that feels right.
It’s just a tool, like any other…
a ghost in the machine I wrestle with, listen to.
G—G
How do you navigate the unpredictability of generative tools—what allows your voice to remain distinct within such fluid systems?
MARCUS WALLINDER
It’s just a tool, like any other. You need to learn how to use it to see its benefits and flaws. It’s fun when it surprises you, but it’s not always what you intended. I think of it as a ghost in the machine—something I engage with, wrestle with, listen to. I don’t see it as a shortcut or a mechanical process. There’s a tension in trying to control something that is, by nature, unpredictable. It forces you to stay present and responsive. That tension is what makes it alive. It makes me more present, more flexible. I never quite know where it will go.
G—G
Between memory and dream lies much of your imagery. How do you work with that instability?
MARCUS WALLINDER
Memory is unreliable. It mutates. I think my images exist in that same space, between what we remember and what actually happened. They are echoes. Sometimes they feel like screenshots from dreams I had. That is the kind of visual truth I’m after—not literal, but emotional. Lately I’ve been circling the idea of reality breaking down: glitches, parallel timelines, and lost identities.
G—G
The works often feel half-told—suggestive rather than complete. Do you build narratives in them, or leave space for others to invent?
MARCUS WALLINDER
I am not really interested in linear stories right now. I’m more drawn to the feeling that something is being told without knowing what it is. It should be open to interpretation. I want my images to be surreal enough that viewers project their own narratives into them. It is more about building a theme where anything can happen. That said, I’m having fun right now creating short narratives that feel like visual poems. I love working on pieces tied to music tracks. Each series becomes a visual translation of a feeling, or a memory of searching for meaning in a digital dreamscape.
G—G
Beyond visual references, your work draws from culture, music, theory, even conspiracy. How do these influences enter your visual world?
MARCUS WALLINDER
Absolutely. Music, especially electronic and ambient, sets the tone. Philosophy and conspiracy culture provide a conceptual edge. I also love reworking everyday objects and symbols from pop culture or subcultures into something unexpected. It’s like remixing the collective subconscious. Cinema, science fiction, contemporary subcultures, and minimalism all feed into it. I’m especially drawn to outsider voices—people who’ve been through shit and come out transformed.
We live in a time where nothing feels
entirely real or entirely fake.
That blur is where my work lives.
G—G
Much of your practice lives in the blur between clarity and distortion. How do you keep that ambiguity alive?
MARCUS WALLINDER
I am interested in how we scroll, how we consume fragments, how clarity is often replaced by suggestion. There is always something withheld, something misaligned. We live in a time where nothing feels entirely real or entirely fake. That blur is where my work lives. A huge turning point was realizing that I shouldn’t create under pressure. I used to stress about posting regularly on Instagram, but every time I forced myself, I regretted it. Now, I trust my rhythm more. When I feel joy or flow, I work. When I don’t, I pause.
G—G
Your work moves fluidly between contexts—galleries, screens, music videos, product worlds. What drives this nomadic sensibility?
MARCUS WALLINDER
I don’t think of my work as belonging to one format. I love seeing it in galleries, sure, but I also love it on a beer label, a digital billboard in Tokyo, or as part of a music video. It is the same ghost, just wearing different clothes. I’ve worked with musicians and record labels around the world, from Nigerian rapper AV Babyboy to Korean brewery Chowol. My work has appeared on gallery walls in London and on digital screens in Tokyo’s Miyashita Park. What matters is the moment of encounter, wherever that happens. My work often connects to music, especially experimental genres. I’m also interested in how art can intersect with product design and branding.
G—G
In an algorithmic present fractured by attention, what role can art play in reclaiming presence?
MARCUS WALLINDER
Art is a place to pause, to feel without needing answers. In this hyper-fractured, algorithmic world, it is a form of resistance to simply be. For me, it is also a way of translating the weirdness of being alive right now. It makes space for the ghosts of memory, the dreams that never fully arrive, the parts of us that don’t fit anywhere else. Right now, I feel a strong pull toward deepening the storytelling. I want the images to do more than look surreal—I want them to say something, or at least whisper something underneath the surface. I’m exploring pairing each piece with short texts, fragments of poetry, imagined dialogues, or cryptic monologues. It’s not about explaining the image, but layering it. More to get lost in. Building a kind of dream logic that lingers. ◾️
We live in a time where nothing feels
entirely real or entirely fake.
That blur is where my work lives.
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