"Landskap utan titel"
Signed Andreas Eriksson and dated 2013 Medelpana on verso. Oil on canvas 75 x 65 cm.
Andreas Eriksson’s major breakthrough came when he represented Sweden at the Venice Biennale in 2011. Here he chose to emphasise the interplay between outside and in, nature and architecture, by having the existing thick tree trunks in the centre of the pavilion interact with the paintings and the small bronze sculptures representing molehills and dead birds placed around the floor. Since then, Andreas Eriksson has been in constant demand for exhibitions in Sweden and abroad.
His first institutional solo exhibition was at Bonniers Konsthall in spring 2014. It was a critical success and went on to tour Trondheim Kunstmuseum in Norway Centre PasquArt in Switzerland and Iceland’s Reykjavik Art Museum. In Stockholm Eriksson’s vast painting “Stenbrottet” takes pride of place in the entrance of the city’s new hospital Nya Karolinska Solna (NKS). Measuring 11×6.5 metres, the work is mounted on the end of a huge lift shaft that runs through the centre of the building.
Andreas Eriksson was admitted to Stockholm’s Royal Institute of Art at the age of 18 (1993). On graduating, he went to live in Berlin, where his career blossomed, including working as an assistant for artists Olav Christopher Jenssen and Tobias Rehberger. The sudden onset of a sensitivity to electricity forced him to make radical changes to his life, moving to the countryside near Kinnekulle in Western Sweden, but this has not hindered his international career. If anything demand for his work has only increased.
Right now, Andreas Eriksson is participating in two different group shows; "New Materialism" at Bonniers Konsthall (5 Sep - 11 Nov) and "NATURE- Home and Workplace" at Johannes Larsen Museet, Kerteminde in Denmark (15 Sep - 9 Dec).
Andreas Eriksson is a Swedish artist, born in 1975 in Lidköping. Eriksson studied at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm between 1993 and 1998, and works with various techniques in his artistic practice, including painting, photography, sculpture, textiles, and graphics.
A recurring theme in Andreas Eriksson's works is the presence of nature; the light over meadows, forests, and mountains is shaped into structures, blocks of color, and organic formations. Often, a motif emerges that can be interpreted as landscapes, shifting between figurative and abstract spatialities. However, Eriksson suggests that the rich and almost sculptural works can just as easily be seen as something other than interpretations of nature; as internal, diffuse landscapes where the viewer can linger.
After a period of work in Berlin, Andreas Eriksson now resides in Medelplana on Kinnekulle in Västergötland. In 2011, he represented Sweden at the Venice Biennale with Fia Backström. Eriksson is also represented at institutions such as the Gothenburg Museum of Art, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the Nasher and David J. Haemseigger Collection of Contemporary Art in the USA, the Sara Hilden Art Museum in Finland, and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark. He became a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in 2014.