Judit Ström: House of Everything

February 27th – March 28th 2009

Opening February 26th, 17-20

Helene Nyborg Contemporary is happy to present the Swedish artist Judit Ström’ssecond solo exhibition in the gallery: House of Everything.
Judit Ström’s paintings are dreamlike image worlds where patterns branch out and blossom in symbols and figures, which fall on top of the primary motives of the picture pane. They are like a veil of dreams and thoughts being woven over the recognizable reality, creating new stories on the existing.

 The centre of the exhibition is the large work ”House of Everything / for Hedda”. The dizzying lines draw the gaze upwards where they spread out into ornaments and scattered motifs. The divide between ornamentation and figuration becomes blurred. The experience of viewing the painting is an exploration, a journey where one can let ones gaze and ones thoughts be drawn around the canvas by the paths of the patterns.

Nature is a repeating part of Ström's motives, but humans and human made objects are constantly interfering with the idyllic nature. Landscapes are turned upside down as if they were reflections in water, thus reminding of the tradition of landscapes as mirrors of emotional states.

By turning her motives upside down Judit Ström draws lines back in time to the German artist Georg Baselitz (b. 1938), who in the 1960’ies starting flipping his motives upside down amongst other thing to challenge the divide between abstract and figurative art.

Judith Ström (b. 1972, Sweden) graduated from The Copenhagen Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 1999. In the last few years she has exhibited in London, Paris and New York. In addition she has participated in a long row of group exhibitions and is at the moment part of a group exhibition in Galerie Zürcher in New York where she will have a solo exhibition in 2010. Judit Ström has received the Paul Gernes Award in 2003, the Paul Gaugain Award in 2004 and the honorary Edith Olsen's grant in 2006. She is represented at collections of The Solomon Foundation in France and The National Museum of Art in Copenhagen.