Kristina Jansson - Paintings for People in Trouble: Stockholm

Andréhn-Schiptjenko is pleased to present Kristina Jansson’s solo exhibition Paintings for People in Trouble. The exhibition, which is Jansson’s fourth with the gallery, opens on Thursday, 14 November, between 17:00 – 20:00.

A conversation between Kristina Jansson and the author Aris Fioretos will be held at the gallery on 7 December at 14:00.

Kristina Jansson is one of Sweden's most influential contemporary painters. In the last ten years she has had three major solo exhibitions at Värmlands Museum (2022), Norrtälje Konsthall (2018) and Borås Konstmuseum (2015). Jansson is also Professor of Art, specializing in Painting, at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm and her works are represented in several Swedish museum collections.

The exhibition Paintings for People in Trouble explores two main questions: one deals with painting and its ability to tell what the photographic image cannot, the other deals with painting from the artist's and art's own position of trying to grasp the world as it is unfolding right now.

Is it hope or luck that contemporary society needs? Jansson's ambiguous imagery has never strived to provide us with direct answers, but it is possible to discern recurring thematic patterns in the motifs. These patterns may be about communication, a changing climate or the general psychological state of the world. Certain motifs often recur in several paintings, like variations on a theme.

A key issue in Jansson's practice has always been the capacity of painting to problematise and deepen the question of perception in a way that the photographic image cannot. If a photograph is a section of what has been omitted outside of the viewfinder, the painter makes different decisions in their process. What has been omitted from the motif still has a presence in the finished painting. The painting itself can be said to represent a world of its own. As a viewer, engaging with a painting opens up other layers compared to looking at another type of image: if the eye can sweep over a photo, the painted image offers a different resistance because every part of the motif is there on account of an active choice. It invites a deeper contemplation where a painting is never just a depiction, but as much a friction between motif and materiality. In the relationship between the artwork, its viewer and the ever-present now that the painting represents, a place of self-reflection arises, where the painting can ultimately become more of a mirror than an image.

Since graduating from the Royal Institute of Art in 2001, Kristina Jansson's (b. 1967, lives and works in Stockholm) work has been shown in numerous exhibitions in Sweden and abroad. Before that, she also studied at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts, Paris, France and the Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna, Austria. 2022 saw the release of Kristina Jansson: Space - Lost and Found, the most comprehensive publication of her work to date. The publication includes works from 2005 onwards and contains texts by Annika Elisabeth von Hausswolff, among others.

For more information about the works presented, plesase contact Hanna Lundberg at hanna@andrehn-schiptjenko.com