THE ARTISTS
Texts by Jan-Erik Lundström
Ann-Louice Abrahamsson (b. 1970), lives and works in Kiruna
Abrahamsson works with watercolour paintings, ceramics and jewellery. Her watercolours are meticulous depictions of Norrbotten’s natural landscapes and architecture. Individual houses and urban scenes are rendered with precision re-narrating moments of the day as well as the distinct seasons of the North
Website. www.ann-louice.se
Helena Adolfsson (b. 1961, Uppsala), lives and works in Kvikkjokk
Adolfsson works with oil paint and watercolour depicting the extraordinary landscape around her village. Her landscapes patiently and eloquently depicts the seasons and daily cycles near her home.
Website. www.helenadolfsson.se
Agneta Andersson (b. 1970, Kiruna), lives and works in Luleå
Andersson works across a range of media, including sculptures, objects and drawings. She has been commissioned with several public works, including Áigerávdnji (Time Flow), for the Sami Sculpture park in Jokkmokk. Under the title New Deadline, referring to the process of moving her home city Kiruna, the artist has produced a series or large scale charcoal drawings of remarkable presence and depth.
Website. www.agnetaandersson.se
Victoria Andersson (b. 1971, Kiruna), lives and works in Luleå
Victoria Andersson works primarily with embroidery. With needle and thread, she creates elegant and distilled images that retell stories or explores particular visual structures. Her recurring subjects are landscapes and the human relationship with nature - reflecting on contemporary culture’s exploitation and careless use of nature and natural resources.
Website. www.victoriaandersson.se
Jette Andersen (b. 1959, Denmark), lives and works in Luleå
Jette Andersen works with visual art and architecture. A clear conceptual tangent interwoven with an expressive aesthetic and precise craftsmanship characterises Andersen’s art. Using painting, graphics, sculpture and objects as her main media, the artist often follows a distilled thematic, both cultural/political and aesthetically formal. Many works bring forth characteristic patterns, reminiscent of abstract geometry and stencil like figures together with a concrete figurative or narrative motif. Andersen’s long-term project, Händer (Hands), follows the inexhaustible capacities of expression tended by the human hand expressed in drawings, sculptures and objects with biographical references.
Website. www.jetteandersen.se
Sture Berglund (b. 1937, Piteå), lives and works in Piteå
Sture Berglund is a visual artist, working primarily with painting, drawing and sculpture. The Bothnian coastal landscape is his main subject, a theme closely expressed in drawings and watercolours adopting either a realistic or abstract style. Since the 1980s, Berglund has been associated with multidisciplinary research projects documenting and interpreting land changes throughout coastal landscapes. Berglund also works with public projects and has recently been commissioned to make diplomas for Nobel Prize winners.
Website. www.stureberglund.com
Pilar de Burgos (b. 1971, Mexico City), lives and works between Luleå and Mexico City
Pilar Burgos’s works are sculptural, often developed into larger installations. Her inclusive works involve a variety of materials that are often generative or repetitive in form, articulating issues regarding human relations and cross-cultural exchanges that reflect the social and spiritual conditions of the present. Burgos artistic practice is also aimed at public space, including site-specific public works and projects.
Website. www.pilardeburgos.com
Sara Edström (b. 1968, Luleå), lives and works in Luleå
Sara Edström works with sculpture, objects, video, installation and performance. The human body or organic forms in general - abstracted or fragmented - are important source materials for her seductive and vital sculptures and objects. Her recent project “I don't look good naked anymore”, explores the identity of the middle-aged woman through videos, sculptures and performative elements. Sara Edström is also one of the co-founders of Galleri Syster in Luleå.
Website. www.saraedstrom.se
Jan Anders Eriksson (b. 1944, Södra Harads), lives and works between Harads and Luleå
Eriksson has worked continuously with painting, using oil and enamel as his preferred media since the 1970s. A prolific artist known for his large landscapes depicting the solitary human figure and exquisite enamels of lonely houses. In both cases the northern geography and atmosphere is a unifying characteristic. Despite his extensive and varied production, he retains an unmistakable signature style that is consistent throughout his oeuvre.
Website. www.jatte.se
Kerstin Hedström (b. 1953), lives and works in Luleå
Hedström works with large sculptures and installations. She frequently uses large quantities of recycled materials in her art such as pencils, lenses, gym shoes and pill boxes. Given their previous use, these objects bring experiences, stories and feelings connected to each completed work. These repetitive or generative structures are also characteristic in terms of her process. Hedström's aesthetic method is detailed, slow and meditative, making time an added element in her practice.
Website. www.slow-art.se
Erik Holmsted (b. 1952, Malmberget), lives and works in Luleå
Erik Holmstedt is a photographer with over 30-year experience working with independent photography. An articulate and precise landscape photography lies at the core of his practice. Captured and expressed in poignant images, he traces the changes affecting the cultural and living landscape of Norrbotten through out the years. The town of Malmberget has been of particular focus to Holmstedt. Narratives and images of the dismantling process of this mining town can be seen through portraits of Malmberget, its inhabitants and the broader landscapes.
Website. www.holmstedt.nu
Carola Grahn (b. 1982, Jokkmokk), lives and works between Jokkmokk and New York
Grahn's works involves text, image, sound, animation and sculpture often taking shape as site specific projects and installations that challenges the gallery space. Grahn's artistic discourse is aimed at structures of power, hierarchy, privilege and oppression, in particular those of gender and indigenous rights, including her own Sami background. Grahn also works collaboratively. Her most recent project “Sami Girl Gang” is a collaboration with Silje Figenschou Thoresen.
Website. www.carolagrahn.se
Per Isak Juuso (b. 1953, Karesuando), lives and works in Mertajärvi
Juuso learned the Sami craft of duodji from his parents. Working in wood, bone as well as metal and textile he is engaged in maintaining and renewing the Sami tradition of duodji. The unique handmade objects of Juuso combines exceptional and precise knowledge of material and technique with a powerful sense of symbolic and metaphoric qualities that transgress’s the traditional domestic utensils of the duodji craft. His series VeMod (Melancholy), includes more than one hundred pieces of expressive miniature faces carved in bone attached to birch logs.
Hanna Kanto (b. 1981), lives and works in Haparanda
With the Northern landscape as the backdrop to scenes of human exchange and living, or with nature as protagonist itself, Kanto’s painting combines the vernacular with the extraordinary - narrative and density with minimalism and abstraction. The enigmatic is vividly and audaciously present in her work. In addition, Hanna works occasionally with video and stage design.
Website. www.hannakanto.com
Jenni Laiti (b. 1981 in Inari, Finland), lives and works in Jokkmokk
Laiti is a Sámi activist and artist who develops projects engaging indigenous rights, de-colonial strategies and environmental issues creatively interwoven in particular projects. Art and activism are intrinsically linked in Laiti's practice. Her works include installations, public works, demonstrations, performative and direct action projects in the public domain. Laiti is also a founding member of Suohpanterror, a semi-anonymous collective producing critical posters, stickers, collages and videos that engages and support the Sámi indigenous identity and rights.
Websites. www.suohpanterror.com | www.ellosdeatnu.com | twitter.com/jennilaiti
Lotta Lampa (b. 1981), lives and works in Kalix and Luleå
Lotta Lampa is an artist and designer, member of the design and art collective Cray Collective. Lotta Lampa also works as project coordinator for Resurscentrum för Konst. Lampa's artistic practice is often based on designed objects such as furniture pieces, mirrors, lamps and other vernacular objects, which she renders with animated, expressive and a humorous style in a wide range of materials and colours.
Website. www.lottalampa.se
Britta Marakatt-Labba (b. 1951, Idivuoma), lives and works in Övre Soppero
A member of the influential artist collective “The Maze Group” in the 1970s, Britta has an extensive practice working with embroidery. Her works are distinct miniature worlds that narrates scenes from everyday life within the Sámi context and the landscape of the north. Her embroidered stories and tableaus are often engaged with contemporary ecological and environmental issues, together with a rich exploration of Sámi iconography, history and mythology. In addition, she has worked with stage design, costumes, and book illustrations. Marakatt-Labba was the only Swedish artist participating in Documenta 14.
Website. www.brittaml.se (updated until 2014)
Oscar Männikkö (b. 1986, Vittangi), lives and works in Boden
Männikkö works with photographic images, sound and installations. In his recent exhibition Vargpojken (The Wolf Boy), Männikkö used large scale black & white photographs, exploring marginal and sub-cultural identities from his own background in Norrbotten.
More info. www.kuriren.nu/kultur/konstelever-staller-ut-i-umea-8285896.aspx
Jenny Nordmark (b. 1980, Kalix), lives and works in Luleå and Stockholm
Nordmark works with stage design, architecture and visual arts installations. The trilogy “Skogen Älven Malmen Nordmark”, traces the historical and ongoing use of Sweden’s main natural resources: forestry, Ore and Hydropower - all extracted from the county of Norrbotten. Her visual practice combines photography, documentations and sculpture.
Website. www.jennynordmark.se
Sarah Oja (b. 1988, Luleå), lives and works in Stockholm and Luleå
Oja's main medium is photography and text. In 2014 she completed a celebrated project using hair as reference to body memory. Sarah Oja has also worked extensively with self-portrait often imitating a journalistic language throughout the images.
Website. www.sarahoja.com
Katarina Pirak-Sikku (b. 1965), lives and works in Jokkmokk
Katarina’s work uses a range of media such as photography, drawing, collage, objects and installations. Over the last decade, she has developed a multifaceted project exploring the practices of the “Swedish Biological Race Institute”: an organisation that subjected the Sami people to anthropometric practices. For her solo exhibition in 2014, “Námmaláhpan”, the artist explored the emotional impact left in the people subjected to this experiments. The project has continued with further examinations of the Institute’s archives in collaboration with researchers working in the fields of anthropology and ethnography.
Angelica Ruffier-Holmqvist (b. 1989, Luleå), lives and works in Luleå
Initially trained in graphic design, Ruffier-Holmqvist works across a range of media including photography and film. Her recent exhibition Det jag trodde mig se, finns det? (What I thought I saw, does it exist?) explored the region of Norrbotten through her mother's collection of newspaper clippings from Luleå, private photos and well-known publications about the region.
Eva Stina Sandling (b. 1950), lives and works in Porsi, near Vuollerim
Her practice finds expression through sculptures, objects, drawings, texts, visual and verbal narratives. Sandling’s work is rooted in the local and the mundane, in particular from place and periphery. Her work is weaved thematically in large installations, public projects, publications and more.
Website. http://sandenart.se
Lena Stenberg (b. 1961, Kiruna), lives and works between Kiruna and Skåne
Stenberg works with sculpture, installation, documentary video and photography. Her ambiguous and sinister objects and installations, references domestic items in dysfunctional and disturbing outcomes. Her photography and video projects takes on a documentary approach within her own Sami identity and cultural environment. Annual events and seasonal activities such as reindeer herding are depicted. In recent projects the artist has also engaged with issues embedded in land rights, denouncing current mining projects on Sami territory.
Website. www.lenastenberg.se.sitebuilder.loopia.com/home
Magnus Svensson (b. 1977), lives and works in Luleå
Magnus works with a carefully sourced set of parameters and methodology. The formal and technical framework for Svensson’s production comprises oil paint - applied in layers on plywood boards. The industrial format of the plywood itself decides the size and scale of the works. Svensson’s work is monochrome, with variations of grey, white and light beige. Magnus’s paintings are carefully executed, a rewarding encounter between concrete art and abstraction, minimalism and constructivism. His work is tactile and intimate, fragments and surfaces pleading discreet attention.The paintings of Magnus Svensson do not propose a specific reference, however a recognisable trace of elements is present throughout his work.
Anders Sunna (b. 1985, Kiruna), lives and works in Jokkmokk
Sunna’s works are often large scale assemblages incorporating appropriated imagery, sprayed stencil images, signs and other pictorial elements. Sunna’s practice is sharply political. It comments upon prejudices and oppression suffered by the Sami people. A biographical element is present in the work, reflecting his family experience and struggle for their right. Sunna also works with performance such as seen in his collaboration with singer/activist Sofia Jannok. Sunna aims to dissolve ignorance and stereotypes through his paintings. His artistic practice is used as a way of channelling anger.
Website. www.anderssunna.com
Gudrun Söderholm (b. 1962), lives and works in Kalix-Nyborg
Söderholm's main medium is weaving applied on a variety of materials and techniques. The combination of traditional textiles with unusual weaving materials such as metal or plastic threads is distinctive of her work. Söderholm works primarily with geometric patterns, repetitive forms and colour combinations inspired by different seasons. Much of her practice is constructed around large scale works for public spaces. In addition, she produces weaving-inspired craft products such as baskets.
More info. www.konsthantverkscentrum.org/member/Gudrun-S%C3%B6derholm
Sven Teglund (b. 1955), lives and works in Luleå
Teglund works mostly with watercolour, focusing on the domestic and the everyday, in the vernacular or seemingly insignificant spaces in the urban environment. A series of paintings from his own neighbourhood depicts garages, parking lots or cars often in a bleak wintery light. Another series renders meticulously knitted small table cloths left by his mother who recently passed away.
Websites. www.tegpublishing.se/af/sven-teglund/ | www.promenaderochutflykter.blogspot.com/
Liselotte Wajstedt (b. 1973, Kiruna), lives and works between Kiruna and Stockholm
An artist and filmmaker, Wajstedt often uses her hometown and Sami background in her diverse practice. Liselotte’s filmic works, combines animation and live footage, mixing documentary (sometimes biographical) with fiction, music video and video art. A recent series of films, interconnects the dramatic story of the city of Kiruna, its forthcoming move and transformation together with the artist own childhood and adulthood memories. In “Jorinda’s Journey”, Japanese Butoh-dance meets Sami jojk and the Sápmi landscape, exploring the destiny of a young Sami woman. Wajstedt also creates craft and design products and household objects, often with elements of duodji as an ingredient. www
Website. www.liselottewajstedt.com
Brita Weglin (b. 1946, Alfta), lives and works in Luleå
Weglin is a productive and experienced artist with a bold and energetic tone permeating through her work. She taps into a rich range of inspirations, including childhood memories, Greek and Roman mythology, opera, popular culture and more. Her techniques and media are also diverse, taking enamel, embroidery, bronze and other sculptural materials, watercolour, collage and several graphic techniques as preferred mediums. Weglin’s practice is versatile and consistently expressive, moving between the burlesque and the austere, brutal, yet tender. At the centre of attention lies the human figure through portraiture, imaginary situations and stories, both allegorical and real in quality.
Website. www.britaweglin.se
Mats Wikström (b. 1954, Stockholm), lives and works in Luleå
Wikström's artistic practice generates objects, sculptures and assemblages. With wood as his main material, he combines found objects, (both natural and man-made) into new configurations and constellations - sometimes with slight modifications or simply unaltered. The resulting assemblages are playful and humorous, drastic and ironic. His practice is rooted in notions of the colloquial and incorporates chance as a key component. Wikström is also a curator and a musician. He has curated two extensive projects on the folk art tradition of Norrbotten.
Website. www.mats-wikstrom.com
Anja Örn/ Tomas Örn (Rat and Dragon), live and work in Luleå
Website. http://ratdragonproduction.se