Highpoint Gallery is pleased to have work by over 30 artists from Sweden currently installed in our main gallery! Grafiska Sällskapet: Contemporary Swedish Printmaking, on view through April 17th, is an exciting look at a wide variety of printmaking techniques and perspectives.
Anne-Lie Larsson Ljung, the curator for the show and a member printmaker of Grafiska Sällskapet, the Swedish Printmakers Association, pointed out three themes that are persistently reflected in the work of Swedish printmakers and visual artists today, and throughout history. Those themes are “naïve narrative,” “abstract/cubist,” and “landscape/melancholy.”
The following artwork demonstrates these themes; the work on the left is currently on view in our gallery.
NAÏVE NARRATIVE
Naïve narrative in this case refers not to a level of skill but a style, one that might include a purposeful distortion of perspective or subversion of reality through color or perspective, for example, for style or effect. There is a strong storytelling component within this group.
Birgitta Nehrman, Skyddsängel
Solveig Lethonen, Everyone Needs a Home
Kristina Thun, I went into the forest and found a tree, Lithograph, etching, screenprinting, 2019
Sven X-et Erixson, Marta Bicycles, Lithograph, 1948
Erling Torkelsen, Untitled
Jockum Nordstrom, Dödsskogen, 2001
ABSTRACT/CUBISM
Abstract/Cubist is the idea of a fierce love of form - abstraction and cubism, or maybe it’s just breaking things down to their fundamental parts, abstraction of shape and shadow, or abstraction to reveal something.
Lina Nordenström, Struktur, photopolymer gravure
Marie Isaksson, Lake
Marie Falksten, Blue, Lithograph
Johan Philip Korn, Sala Silver Mine, 18th c.
Eugene Jansson, Nocturne, 1900
Ulf Trotzig
MELANCHOLY LANDSCAPE
Living in Minnesota, it is probably easy to envision how the words landscape and melancholy might be connected. Artistic depictions offer the sense of a space, affected by light, time, atmosphere, and reflection. Landscapes aren’t just pictures of nature; they can change the way we think about place.
Mikael Wahrby, Greenhouse, Etching
Sofi Hagman, Snowdrop V
J.A.G. Acke, Gustavian Interior, 1900
Johan Flintoe, Landscape, Jostedalen, 1822
Roger Metto, Glacier des Bois, Lithograph
Mamma Andersson, Absinthe (Tryptich), 2010