On a first glance, it might be surprising that Anna Bohman Gallery’s presentation of new works by Astrid Svangren puts so much emphasis on the artist being a painter, since, bar the occasional splash, it includes no painting at all. Instead, she has worked with textile and sculpture resulting in a presentation of four veiled figures and textile assemblages in bright sumptuous colours. In the rear room, a series of all-black works – a rare sight in Svangren’s practice – made of horsehair and millinery netting looks like tears running down the wall.
Since the early 2000s, Svangren has gradually moved from figurative painting to more abstract installation-based works. More specifically, she has shifted from drawing and painting on glass and other hard surfaces to working with malleable materials like translucent fabric, cellophane, and tissue paper, often with sparkling, shimmering elements in colours such as yellow, pink, and purple, bringing to mind Pierre Bonnard’s sun-drenched interiors and gardens (always with a shadow lurking around the corner).
However, according to the exhibition text by Anders Kreuger, director of Kohta kunsthalle in Helsinki, Svangren still “thinks like a painter,” and formal and material experimentation is part of “the predicament of painting today,” which is true enough. Furthermore, the figurative elements – which, as far as I know, have not appeared in Svangren’s work for the last fifteen years or more – makes the show feel like stepping into one of her works from the early 2000s. Only now, the surface is the room itself, while the brushstrokes are sensually draped fabrics. And instead of drawing the figures, Svangren has sculpted them in polystyrene and mounted them on elaborate wooden stands evoking mannequins from some abandoned sewing studio and contributing the haunting atmosphere in the room.
To describe how the exhibition works, imagine what reality would look like if it were suddenly paused and transformed into an image of itself. Such a frozen scene would probably still feel familiar, like a photograph. The relationships between the objects and the individuals, as well as how they are placed in the room, would follow a familiar logic whose basic workings could be easily deciphered. In Svangren’s work, the exact opposite seems to be happening. Instead of reality turning into an image (or a painting), it is as if painting has transformed into a three-dimensional version of itself. The result can be likened to a full-scale model of reality that looks much the same, but functions in a completely different way, through markings, intensities, similes, and displacements.
In contrast to reality as we usually experience it, the figures are shaped like rudimentary dolls – more similes than representations of humans. Instead of wearing clothes, they are covered in fabric, paper, beeswax, and other materials that seem to connect to their function or meaning in the space. This, of course, is not furnished in an ordinary way; the gallery is sparsely installed, save some elements with no practical function placed here and there. One wall features what appears to be a large waterfall or possibly a deconstructed couture gown in creased dark peach chiffon with dissolved seams and splashes of blood-red paint. On the other walls hang what look like bunches of ripe fruit or clusters of coagulated orange and blue paint.
Normally, in the usual sense of reality, an abundance of fruit and cascading waterfalls would mean that we are in nature or even a paradisiacal garden. But here familiar boundaries between figures or the surrounding environment do not apply. The fact that the figure at the far end of the room has dried flowers in the mesh of their transparent veil need not be seen as them wearing a floral item of clothing; it could also mean that they are standing in a meadow where the flowers metonymically denote the place. And the meadow doesn’t have to be outside of them; it might be an inner experience. Perhaps the flowers are not even flowers, but snowflakes?
I am reminded of the myth of Persephone, who was abducted and forced to spend part of the year underground (when it got dark and cold and all the plants died) and part above ground (when the fertile season returned). There is a related tone of archaic violence and loss in the exhibition, particularly in the figure of a small child who, with arms outstretched, seems to be reaching for someone who is no longer there to receive them.
It is easy to slip into an everyday way of thinking and attribute to the works a meaning or narrative that isn’t there. For instance, instead of assuming that the figures depict different individuals we might see them as the same individual at different points in time. The layers of fabric could then be a way of visualising how much time each one has accumulated (more layers would mean more time and older age). In this way, the exhibition could be conceived of as a Russian doll, depicting how earlier versions of ourselves are still buried within us. We commonly consider ourselves to be the same person as the children that we once were, but could we not, Svangren might ask, just as well be seen as wholly separate individuals?
Indeed, Svangren has often talked about wanting to reconnect with the inquisitive gaze of her inner child, and with that in mind the infant-like figure feels more triumphant than abandoned. The ‘V’ formed by its raised arms is echoed by the all-black works in the back room, perhaps symbolising the artist’s openness to her own process. The lengthy exhibition title captures this approach quite well: “…reflection, projection, and repetition exist / memory and elixir of light do not exist.” I interpret the first line to refer to how the works function on a material level, while the second part seems to be about the particular forgetfulness that guides the painter’s hand. I suspect “elixir of light” refers to magic thinking, all-too common in art, which Svangren shuns in favour of methodical tinkering.
Svangren lives in Copenhagen and does not often exhibit in Stockholm, so her regular appearances at Anna Bohman Gallery – which in recent years has mounted some of the most compelling and experimental painting shows in the city – is a welcome feature. This time, it is as if Svangren has used her early works as leverage to take a new step forward. Yet, her return to figuration seems linked to a greater degree of negativity than we’ve seen from her lately. There’s an eerie silence between the figures, a detachment that speaks of catatonic reactions to pandemic and genocide. It might be presumptuous to describe the image as true, but at least it’s not false. It is magnificent, beautiful, terrifying, mournful and strangely exuberant.
