Carl Kostyál is delighted to current a brand new physique of labor by Swedish-born artist Camilla Engström. The exhibition ‘Ro’, Swedish for tranquility, marks the artist’s debut in London, and her fifth solo exhibition with the gallery.
“Camilla Engström’s current work are impressed by pictures that her father despatched her from his walks by the Råcksta lake, a nature reserve near Stockholm, Sweden. The pictures have functioned as a form of temper board relatively than being immediately used as foundation for work. Now dwelling in California, the artist considered them with a combination of consolation and longing. The portray Melting Snow (2024), for example, depicts a transitional second that so many Swedes lengthy for, the arrival of spring after months of chilly and darkness. However the portray is a not a sensible rendering of a selected panorama. The fields of white, inexperienced and blue kind summary patterns, whereas the foreground with flowers and a naked birch tree are extra clearly figurative parts.
For different work she has additionally drawn inspiration from her travels alongside the Californian coast round Morro Bay, Cambria and Large Sur. They’re imaginary landscapes conceived as a synthesis of the locations she loves. In Morro Bay, a big rock raises out of the ocean: Morro Rock is one in all a number of volcanic plugs, remnant of a necks of extinct volcanoes and was thought of a sacred web site by the Salinan and Chumash tribes. The smoking volcano is a recurring motif in Engström’s work. The meandering smoke rising from earth to heaven, is sort of a signal of life, of one thing scorching stirring beneath the calm floor. Engström paints nature as animated, a perception that’s shared by each romanticism and lots of religions.
In her work, landscapes and flowers are typically merged with feminine our bodies, and with the solar as a lactating breast. Portraying nature as sensual, even sexual, her work has been in comparison with that of Georgia O’Keeffe. There are additionally a number of work with bare lady reclining in nature, typically with closed eyes. In Earth Dreamer (2023) a sleeping nude is laying on her aspect, arm folded beneath her head. Locks of her lengthy hair meanders down into the orange, desert panorama and turns into blue streams of water. An earth goddess, maybe, making a world in her goals.
One other supply of inspiration are photos that involves thoughts throughout meditation – one thing she does every single day. Whereas meditating you shut out all distractions and deal with being current within the second. That is additionally vital when making artwork. Engström’s work course of is intuitive. She doesn’t make preparatory drawings or sketches. She has stated that she believes within the therapeutic powers of artwork, the therapeutic results each in making and experiencing artwork. Not least after her stint within the style trade, artwork felt like a haven of freedom and empowerment.
Modern panorama portray is commonly mentioned in relation to local weather change and environmental disaster. Engström’s work might after all be considered from this angle – even when the works are free from didactic messages. Relatively, she shows a Pop-art sensibility, embracing what the extra stern and ascetic elements of the artwork world would possibly contemplate too playful and ornamental. The environmental engagement is relatively to be discovered within the love of nature, and in displaying a world that’s value defending. A reminder that human beings are each a part of and dependent upon the pure world.
The dream-like, otherworldly high quality of the works is said to Surrealism, just like the enigmatic works of Magritte. There’s a serene, utopian really feel to them; the goals they evoke usually are not nightmarish. But when one appears for artwork historic references, the post-Impressionist Synthetism motion additionally appears related, with its emphasis on two-dimensional flat patterns and daring outlines and a deal with the artist’s feeling towards the topic. Turning Tides is a vibrant and emotionally charged composition, the place the mountains within the distance, shimmering daylight on the water and an intensely purple and inexperienced shoreline seem majestic, timeless. A skinny department with a couple of sprouting leaves within the foreground is contrastingly fragile wanting. It captures the paradox of power, magnificence and vulnerability.
The Swedish painter Hilma af Klint is one other artist that resonates with Engström. af Klint’s early summary work have been a part of a non secular quest. She thought of her work to have been guided by greater spirits known as The Excessive Masters. Engström has been granted a residency on the soon-to-be reconstructed studio of Hilma af Klint, positioned on Adelsö, an island not removed from Stockholm the place the artist spent her summers and painted. The channelling of spirits can also be relatable to her: Engström has invented a persona, an alter-ego that she has named Husa, which is Swedish for housemaid. This sounds ironic contemplating how she is portrayed as an unbiased, free lady and a form of eco-feminist, however she says of her “I feel symbolically Husa represents Mom Nature or the supply of creation typically.” – Magnus af Petersen, 2024