From paintings made entirely of volcanic rock to his more recent kinetic sculptures and soundscapes, Bob Landström‘s practice is an investigation of mystery and the invisible. An Atlanta-based artist, Landström explores the liminal space between science and spirituality through works created with a unique process using crushed and pigmented volcanic rock.
His textural works, rooted in earthly elements, intertwine reflections on dreams, the language and sensibility of plants, quantum mechanics, and energetic vibrations. Today, his research has expanded into even more experimental territories, including sound sculptures made with harmonic bowls and even emu eggs. This fall, he will also participate in the GRIT group show at Alday Hunken Gallery in Atlanta.
The connection with volcanic rock was born almost by chance, as the artist himself explains:
“I first encountered volcanic rock in the desert of the Four Corners, where I was studying Native American petroglyphs. The landscape there is extraordinary — a place where the Earth feels close, big, pressing its presence into your bones”. And he specifies:
“That land also holds an ancient volcanic field, with dozens of vents dating back some 26 million years. I brought fragments of the rock home with no intention beyond curiosity, but its materiality took hold of me: once liquid within the Earth, now solid in my hands. That transmutation — from liquid to solid — felt like an elemental reminder of creation itself. One discovery led to another, and volcanic rock became an essential part of my practice”.
And then he adds: “Over the years, I’ve developed ways of grinding and pigmenting the rock as a painting medium, constantly evolving new techniques of application. In my experimental and experiential works, it often emerges as a character of its own, carrying the voice of something primordial, a personification of physical materiality”.
This encounter marked the beginning of an ever-evolving artistic journey, where matter, energy, and contemplation transform into images and sounds that open a space of inner resonance.
Your choice of earthy materials seems intertwined with a spiritual reflection: do you consider your process closer to science or meditation?
My studio practice is research-based, and to me, that is also a meditation, a way of understanding, empathizing, and interpreting. Meditating on what we see, hear, or feel is a way of becoming that thing, so that we can speak to it with some insight.
I tend to work in the interstice where science and metaphysics overlap, where they merge and become almost indistinguishable. I don’t follow the scientific method per se, but my process carries a similar spirit: What if it works this other way? What if this is what’s happening? What might it look like if we try this? Imagination leads to meditation, which leads to expression. Or, said differently, it’s rabbit-hole digging.
There is so much beauty and wonder in those esoteric concepts, and in the way we navigate them. That’s where the merging happens.
Lately, I’ve been focused on the idea of materiality: where it comes from, how it is formed, and where it goes. Earthy materials are central to that inquiry, as are the objects, sounds, or lights that reveal transmutations from nothingness to somethingness, from chaos to order — or back again.
In your works, we find references to dreams, the language of plants, and quantum mechanics: where does the inspiration to connect such diverse fields come from?
These ideas often arrive in ways I can’t quite explain. It feels like wandering through a forest and suddenly stumbling into a rabbit hole — unexpected at first, but in hindsight, probably the right destination at the time.