Anders Widoff

Anders Widoff works alternately with painting and sculpture. He often starts with simple, overlooked, and seemingly insignificant objects, repeatedly restoring their value. He gravitates toward the everyday, offering the viewer new ways to see a hidden meaning beyond the obvious.

In the work "Skånsk allmoge" he has depicted a piece of checkered textile, similar in style to the work Förtroende (Trust) created in 1992 and purchased by Moderna Museet. The title alludes to traditional Swedish folk craft, but the pattern evokes a more banal association with checkered shirt fabric. Widoff has moved away from the classicist painting of the late 1980s and, through sharp stylistic shifts, sought new directions in his artistry. Via museum installations and art investigations, he has continued to develop his ambition to make the viewer see the value in the forgotten and trivial. In the 1990s, he returned to realistic painting and created a series of large canvases featuring variations of checkered patterns.

Mårten Castenfors writes about Widoff’s realistic kitchen wax-cloth paintings in the Saltarvet Collection catalog, 2001:

'With its carefully painted pattern, Widoff has created a tribute to the familiar plastic tablecloth found on kitchen tables, an illusion that also contains hints of stains and traces of daily life. Through his painting, Widoff has found a crossroad between realism and classic minimalism while simultaneously bringing art down from its high pedestal by sincerely emphasizing tangibility, everydayness, and materiality.'

Anders Widoff has exhibited both nationally and internationally since the late 1970s. In Sweden, he has had solo exhibitions at, among others, Moderna Museet and Liljevalchs Konsthall, and abroad at institutions such as Wiener Secession and Overbeck-Gesellschaft in Lübeck. He has also worked for many years as a professor at Konstfack and the Oslo National Academy of the Arts.