'Masquerade', 2016
Signed Helena Blomqvist and numbered AP verso. Total edition of 6 + 2 AP. Pigment print, image 116 x 150 cm.
Lars Bohman Gallery, Stockholm, "Florentine", 17 March - 23 April 2016, another example exhibited.
Helena Blomqvist, 'Florentine', 2016, illustrated on full-page.
"Florentine" is a story about a magnificent mythical figure, a very old woman who personifies many great women from our modern history. In images that appear to be taken from Florentine's photo album, we see glimpses of her long and rich life. Florentine looks back and remembers. What is a memory, what are reconstructions, what are fantasies and what really happened? Are the magical moments invented in Florentine's head? In the suite "Florentine", scenes take place in a fictional neighbourhood. The interiors reflect a lost time. Old newspapers, peeling wallpaper and crumbling walls preserve the past.
The viewer enters this imaginative narrative with its shimmering constructions, free from fixed rules. A neighbourhood built on a small scale, with different scenes and events, but in the unknown there is always something more or less familiar, luring us into the imaginary reality. Countless layers of ideas, allusions and moods are stored one by one. Where are we in time? In a time long gone or far into the future? The past and the future sometimes blend together in these works. Some extend a moment into an eternity.