Karin Broos

“Hero” by Karin Broos is an evocative painting that delves into the artist's typical themes - the shadows of the past, the charged moments of everyday life and the liminal state between action and reflection. In the painting, we see a woman descending a staircase leading down to a body of water. The reflective surface of the water, a recurring motif in Broos work, carries a deep symbolism here, where water stands as a metaphor for transitions - between solid and liquid, between dream and reality, between childhood and adulthood. Water, so central to Broos' art, functions not only as an outward reflection of nature, but also as a place of spiritual reflection and introspection. The shiny surface lures the viewer into a space of uncertainty, a space between the known and the unknown. In “Hero”, Broos moves beyond the clearly depicted motifs and opens up for a deeper, almost philosophical, reflection on what it means to be human. The woman's hesitant steps suggest both caution and desire, and as in many of her works, there is a charged undertone that carries questions about what has happened the moment before and what might happen next. Karin Broos has often been described as an artist who, with clear lines and skillful execution, encapsulates the ambiguous. Her paintings are, as art critic Ingela Lind puts it, like a ballad or a blues - melancholic and repetitive, but at the same time charged with existential questions. Broos' subjects are often taken from her immediate surroundings - daughters, grandchildren, dogs, the landscape around Lake Fryken in Värmland - but they are never simply idyllic.