Mamma Andersson

Mamma Andersson's paintings welcome us into comfortable domestic interiors, lush landscapes, and cozy genre scenes just enough to allow their otherworldly air to take hold. Familiarity gives way to mystery as skewed perspectives, irreconcilable spaces, and the impossible coexistence of circumstances penetrate our consciousness. This air of the supernatural is reinforced by Andersson's technique, as thickly layered paint is juxtaposed with loosely washed areas with deliberately effaced edges. In many of Andersson's works, images of recognizable paintings by other artists are peculiarly placed accessories. In Stairway to the Stars, the ladder-like arrangement of canvases that floats upward before swirling mountains and a black sky includes works by Manet, Hopper, Monet, Gauguin, and Peter Doig, whose large, dream-like landscapes are on view in a nearby gallery. These pictures within pictures seem to give us a view to a dimension beyond the present, an entire universe created by another artist's mind. In fact, the notion of the canvas as a portal to another more beautiful world can be considered the subject of many of Andersson's recent paintings.

Selected Bibliography:

Charlesworth, J. J. "Northern Exposure." Art Review 54 (December 2002–January 2003): 120–21.

Herbert, Martin. "Mamma Andersson." Time Out, October 6–13, 2002, 57.

Higgie, Jennifer. "Morning Stands on Tiptop." Frieze, no. 68 (Summer 2002): 68–71.

Jortvelt, Anne Karin, and Andrea Kroksnes, eds. Devil May Care: The Nordic Pavilion at the 50th Venice Biennale, 2003 (Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany: Hatje Cantz, 2003).

O'Reilly, Sally. "Mamma Andersson." Art Monthly, no. 262 (December 2002–January 2003): 8–39.

Links:

Ars Fennica

Magnus Karlsson

Stephen Friedman Gallery