Gunnel Wåhlstrand
27 Aug - 04 Oct 2009
GUNNEL WÅHLSTRAND
Aug 27 - Oct 4, 2009
Andréhn-Schiptjenko takes great pleasure in presenting Gunnel Wåhlstrand’s second solo show at the gallery. Wåhlstrand (b. 1974) graduated from Royal University College of Fine Arts in 2003, with a graduate exhibition that attracted much attention and has since had solo shows at Andréhn-Schiptjenko in 2005 and at Magasin 3 in 2006. In 2008, she completed a permanent commission in the entrance of the Court of Appeal of Skåne and Blekinge.
For eight years, Wåhlstrand has worked exclusively with a kind of re-development of private photographs, using black ink and water, a precise and time-consuming technique that she masters to perfection. The earlier body of motives consisted of her father’s family photo album, but has now been expanded to a wider family group. One of the larger works, Mother Profile, is a rendering of a studio photograph of the artist’s mother. In the exhibition, it is placed so that she gazes at the landscape where her father dramatically crashed and fell to his death. Further on in the room, a portrait of him can be seen. It is the smallest work in the exhibition and the only one in colour. The artist decided that the fact that no colour photographs ever existed of her grandfather, was a strong enough reason to return to colour, for her sake as well as for his.
Wåhlstrand’s depiction is a both deeply personal and universal process. The precise and demanding task of depicting these documents is a way for the artist to physically and psychologically approach a personal history of which she, without any own experience of it, lives the consequences.
Aug 27 - Oct 4, 2009
Andréhn-Schiptjenko takes great pleasure in presenting Gunnel Wåhlstrand’s second solo show at the gallery. Wåhlstrand (b. 1974) graduated from Royal University College of Fine Arts in 2003, with a graduate exhibition that attracted much attention and has since had solo shows at Andréhn-Schiptjenko in 2005 and at Magasin 3 in 2006. In 2008, she completed a permanent commission in the entrance of the Court of Appeal of Skåne and Blekinge.
For eight years, Wåhlstrand has worked exclusively with a kind of re-development of private photographs, using black ink and water, a precise and time-consuming technique that she masters to perfection. The earlier body of motives consisted of her father’s family photo album, but has now been expanded to a wider family group. One of the larger works, Mother Profile, is a rendering of a studio photograph of the artist’s mother. In the exhibition, it is placed so that she gazes at the landscape where her father dramatically crashed and fell to his death. Further on in the room, a portrait of him can be seen. It is the smallest work in the exhibition and the only one in colour. The artist decided that the fact that no colour photographs ever existed of her grandfather, was a strong enough reason to return to colour, for her sake as well as for his.
Wåhlstrand’s depiction is a both deeply personal and universal process. The precise and demanding task of depicting these documents is a way for the artist to physically and psychologically approach a personal history of which she, without any own experience of it, lives the consequences.