Gunnel Wåhlstrand: Stockholm

It is with great pleasure that Andréhn-Schiptjenko presents Gunnel Wåhlstrand’s third solo-exhibition at the gallery. The exhibition will take place in the temporary space at Artillerigatan 40, an intimate room where Wåhlstrand creates her own universe.

For many years, Wåhlstrand has worked exclusively with what could be described as a re-development of private photographs using ink-wash, a technique that she masters to perfection. Her body of motives has previously consisted of images from her family photo album, and many of them – for instance Mother Profile and New Year’s Day, both shown in her solo-show at Magasin III Museum and Foundation for Contemporary Art, Stockholm and at Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam in 2017 – have become very well known for a large audience.

The close connection between life and art is intact when Wåhlstrand in her new works chooses to leave the earlier albums behind and focus on her own life and images she has taken herself.

“These are paintings of the photographs I have taken myself, of the places that mean the most to me. The far end of the beach, the view above, the oak on the other side of the ditch. These places, or perhaps rather the memory or image of them, are a spiritual centre where dreams take place and always have. They are painted one by one, one as a result of the other. In the beginning my focus was the places in themselves, to keep, understand and make them mine, but in the end it became something different. Mother who died and suddenly she was like a filter or a screen in front of the landscapes. It’s the lightest of lights and the darkest just before black.”

Wåhlstrand (born 1974), graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 2003 with an acclaimed graduation show and has since then developed an exceptional œuvre. Her process is deeply personal yet has a universally affecting presence. The precise and demanding technique commands a very spare production that has been on view at institutions such as Magasin III Museum & Foundation for Contemporary Art, Stockholm, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Uppsala Konstmuseum and Nordiska Akvarellmuseet, and that has also been the subject of numerous publications.