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Flora, Fauna & Kroppens tunna skal
Lars Lerin, Maria Nordin and Bernd Koberling are well-known names, representing three different generations of artists. They move in different thematic circles, work with different forms of expression and radiate different kinds of energy. What they have in common, apart from the virtuoso watercolour technique, is a close friendship with the museum. Their art also incorporates the aesthetic values that are always so relevant. Bruno Liljefors worked around the late 19th and early 20th century, but has inspired many artists and has been a trendsetter in his approach to portraying birds. In the exhibition, he is presented alongside Lars Lerin.
The exhibition is comprised of three distinct parts: Flora, Fauna and Kroppens tunna skal
Bernd Koberling / Flora
Bernd Koberling’s art tends to focus on the plant kingdom, and his inspiration is often found in the nature of northern climes. Over the past 30 years, the artist has regularly returned to Iceland. His vision focuses on the innumerable shifts in Arctic flora. Koberling’s sensuous watercolours are like alchemy experiments, where water and pigment reflect life in microcosm. The upcoming exhibition shows some of the artist’s more recent paintings, in which the colour palette has been intensified and the visual idiom is more towards the abstract than the figurative.
Lars Lerin & Bruno Liljefors / Fauna
(extended until 31 January 2021)
Lars Lerin is one of Sweden’s best-loved artists, famous for his masterful treatment of chiaroscuro. An industrious art producer, Lerin creates paintings that embody ambiences and etch themselves into the memory. One of the vital elements in Lerin’s diverse creative portfolio is pictures of animals. With technical skill and a heartfelt passion for the humblest of creatures, Lerin depicts small birds, field mice and hares.
The sensitive watercolours by Lars Lerin are shown alongside several studies by wildlife painter Bruno Liljefors (1860–1939).
Wild animals was Liljefors's favourite subject matter. He was fascinated by Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory and combined his artistic talent with wildlife studies of animal behaviour. Liljefors had an innovative approach to painting animals and became internationally influential. In the 1880s, he worked according to the principles of naturalism. His motifs were often depicted at close range with the exactness of a hunter or natural scientist, and in a style partly inspired by Japanese art. The scenes are dramatic and heightened by Darwin's ideas on the survival of the fittest. Over the years, Liljefors's brushwork became looser and more similar to the Impressionist way of representing nature, with fleeting moods as a central element. The natural habitat of the animals also played an important part in his practice – Nordic twilight landscapes and dark forests.
Maria Nordin / Kroppens tunna skal
(extended until 31 January 2021)
“The old-world body is linked to the cosmos. The new-world body is autonomous, but alone,” as ideas historian Karin Johannisson wrote. Nature and culture come together in portrayals of the body. The human body is also the starting-point for Maria Nordin’s creation. Her art depicts the body as the literal human shell, but also as a container for everything that is individual within us. The exhibition presents Maria Nordin’s latest paintings, which show the shell and surface, but is about making the invisible, visible.
