"Sovrummet II"
Signed M.L de Geer Bergenstråhle and dated 1976. Gouache on silk 32 x 60 cm. Including the artist's frame 45 x 70 cm.
Galleri Heland, Stockholm.
Lars Wetterling Collection.
Norrköpings Museum, 1976.
Kulturhuset, "Marie-Louise Ekman - en retrospektiv utställning" 1998.
Moderna Museet, Stockholm, "Marie-Louise Ekman", 17 June – 17 September 2017.
Kulturhuset, "Marie-Louise Ekman - en retrospektiv utställning", Carlssons förlag, 1998.
Marie-Louise Ekman is without doubt one of the most unique contemporary artists in Sweden today. Her stylistic consistency is striking. She has such a distinct visual lan-guage that is unmistakably hers, and an artistic practice that remains timeless and always topical.
Ekman borrows everyday environments and situations and makes them her own. In an experimental fashion she combines the absurd and the surreal in recognisable settings. In the painting, Sovrummet II, she moves unimpeded across boundaries into new worlds and scenes. Her imagery is filled with art historical references mixed with elements of popular culture.
Her artistic practice has been greatly marked by her anarchic and perceptive assault on normality, which can be seen in the scope of her work. It is this that allowed her to be-come part of the circle around the influential underground magazine Puss.
Ekman has a diverse practice in which she likes to return to certain images and contexts. There is hardly a motif or a figure that does not turn up in several other scenes or that one gets acquainted with more than once. At first you encounter them in objects and paint-ings, then later in films, TV series and radio shows. Even if the medium changes Ekman has kept returning to the same topics and style for several decades now – and as a result her art always seems surprisingly youthful.
Marie-Louise Ekman is without a doubt one of Sweden's most eccentric artists. The consistency in her expression is striking, with a distinctive language that is unmistakably her own.
Ekman's artistry is timeless and continuously relevent. She is a leading and influential artist who often depicts everyday environments, but does not align herself with the absurdist and surrealist art forms. She travels unhindered over artistic buondaries and often ustilises art historical references, incorporating them with pop-culture references. Ekmans konstnärskap har i mycket präglats av hennes anarkistiska och klarsynta angrepp på normalitet som ständigt har manifesterats i en spännvidd som låtit henne ingå i kretsen kring den inflytelserika undergroundtidningen "Puss" och med separatutställningar på Galerie Aronowitsch.
When looking closer at her multifaceted artisty one discovers that she is a recycler. There is barely a motif that is not repeated in more than one context, not a figure that does not stir up déjà vu. One first encounters these elements in objects or paintins, then in movies, tv-seris and radio programmes. Although the media sources vary in theme and tone over the decades, Ekman continues to reference media through her art, and it is thanks to this that Ekman feels forever young.
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