MAMMA ANDERSSON
2017-05-22This is the first time that Andersson has reimagined her unique visual language through woodcut print. Each depicts an animal, person, place or object delicately and laboriously hand printed onto fine Japanese paper. This is an important step for Andersson who has long created wistful landscapes and domestic scenes. Each print is unique as the texture of the wood, the viscosity of the ink, and the placement of the woodblock cannot be repeated more than once. Andersson rejects the history of print-making and its
aspiration of image reproduction. Instead she embraces the elements of chance involved in hand printing, using the slight slippage and misalignment of the images as part of the work. This creates a series in which the prints are all related, but in each the thick oily pigment tells a different story.
Andersson cultivated the idea for these prints at her summerhouse in Gotland, a wild and small island off the east coast of Sweden. The arrival of an old printing press gave the studio ‘a new heart’. The hares, red deer, black cats and tall trees bending in the breeze provide a window into Andersson’s beginnings as a landscape painter and the countryside of her childhood. Hunting and fishing remain a central part of Swedish culture and these references allude to Andersson’s concern with the slippage of time and
the ever-present desires of humanity.
Opposite – Cave, 2016
Exhibition runs through to May 27th, 2017
Stephen Friedman Gallery
25-28 Old Burlington Street
W1S 3AN
London
