Private view Tuesday 9 February 2016, 6-8pm
Stephen Friedman Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings and tapestries by Swedish artist Andreas Eriksson. The show runs concurrent with a solo presentation at Gothenburg Museum of Art in Sweden, and follows a recent touring European museum retrospective. Eriksson’s second exhibition at the gallery is comprised of two new bodies of work: tapestries woven from untreated Swedish linen and paintings that exude a bold palette of sun-bleached colours. The works create a dramatic window onto the Nordic vista and investigate the relationship between the environment and our experience in it. The title of the show, ‘Röta, bråka, skäkta och häckla’ is Swedish for the four stages of the linen-making process, and is left intentionally abstract for a non-Swedish speaking audience.
Painting and weaving have long been simultaneous activities for Eriksson and in this show he explores the relationship between the two distinct practices. The woven linen used in the tapestries is the same as the linen canvas he paints on and it links the groups of work. Eriksson’s painting has often used layering to create texture, as the pigment is built up or scraped away. Overlays of paint form depths of intense colour and shade. In the same way, the bunching together of the yarn in the weaving forges pools of light in the intricate surface. The tapestries appear painterly, while the paintings become sculptural. Textures, layers and densities are explored to great effect in both media.
