From Björn Springfeldt’s text, January 2006:

“When I first crossed the threshold into Roland Persson’s studio, intellect and emotion turned a somersault. It was one of those rare and blessed moments when uncertainty is total and everything feels new—at once both a threat and a gift.

It was the sculptor Lars Kleen who had urged me to seek out Roland Persson, who turned out to live almost next door out on Värmdö. It is not often that an artist one respects gives such a recommendation, but when it happens, there is all the more reason to listen.
[…]

That the visit to the studio was so overwhelming was due to many different things. Partly to Roland Persson himself—thoughtful, unhurried, and sparing with small talk. One soon understood that what he said came from a sharp intellect and great sensitivity. Furthermore, the methods and materials he used for his works were so surprising, as was the extreme span between tenderness and brutality.

In one corner, silver-colored potted plants—succulents with leaves sharp as knives—turned out to be cast in bronze. The masterpieces, in a purely technical sense, must be his sculptures of tumbleweed, the wind-driven bushes we have all seen bouncing along in Western films. To cast these thread-thin and winding structures, he had to invent a rotating mold. He himself likened these sculptures to photography. Here one finds the same discreet coloring of the creator’s temperament and the same sober presentation of facts. This astonishing technical knowledge was also naturally present in the works he creates in the material that seems to suit him best: silicone, which is so indeterminate, pliable, and unpretentious. At the same time, it is evocative. It is the second most common element in nature, almost as hard as diamond, yet it can form a material as soft as the human body.

But no technique in the world, no matter how skillfully it is used, can sustain interest if it is not in the service of a poetic idea. After this first visit to the studio, I have not been able to let go of the objects Roland Persson creates, but have remained absorbed by them and reflected on them. Through a series of visits and conversations, the perspective has broadened, the questions have grown more complex, and the urgency of the works has intensified.
[…]

This text would only touch upon one aspect of the works if tenderness—and especially the defiant force called humor—were not further emphasized. In the attention Roland Persson gives to a kind of unintentional folk poetry, which he calls “Ockelbo solutions,” he points to the beauty that lies beneath the surface of something overlooked and, by conventional standards, considered “ugly.” This capacity for empathy and for embracing other worlds, which is Roland Persson’s, finds its most beautiful expression in his large-scale works for public spaces, which can well be considered among the most remarkable—and, in the best sense, most popular—of their kind. Works that could not arise without deep respect for those who will encounter them, and that would not resonate as they do if they did not contain both warmth, depth, and humor.”