This exhibition has passed
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Andreas ErikssonFrom Sketch to Tapestry
The Nordic Watercolour Museum is showing a solo exhibition of watercolours, drawings and textiles by Andreas Eriksson. The presentation highlights the complex, time-consuming creative process from idea to expression, from sketch to weave.
Andreas Eriksson works with different artistic techniques in tandem. His styles and expressions can vary. The works often hang in the balance between the abstract and the figurative. His most important source of inspiration is nature.
Eriksson’s interest in the actual canvas, its texture and tactile properties, was the origin of his textile works, completed alongside expert weaving artists. The large, monochrome tapestries are part of an ongoing series, which apart from a few individual works are being shown for the first time in Sweden. The works are named after geographic locations, such as Weissensee (a district of Berlin), Linköping, Djurgården and Vinterviken (the latter two in Stockholm).
On many levels the entire suite is about the actual material and its origins. Everything begins with Andreas Eriksson’s sensitive watercolour sketches, and continues through the master weavers’ translations of these into another sensitive material. Water and pigment are transformed into textile patterns that arise through different degrees of density and floating weave. Unbleached linen yarns of different thickness lend texture. The natural colour of the linen, which shifts depending on the soil it was grown in and how much light it has been exposed to, has been preserved.
In their literal way, the tapestries depict one of the fundamental problems of painting: the balance between depth and surface. Two artistic temperaments – the fast watercolour and the slow technique of weaving – blend together and become one. The end results is the unique expression of the works.