Bonniers Konsthall

Astrid Svangren is first out in an exhibition series in which Bonniers Konsthall invites artists to create works especially for the Spetsen gallery at the point of the building. With its all-glass walls, the displays in the Spetsen gallery are as much for the passers-by on Torsgatan and for the people travelling by train as for the visitors of the art gallery. The transparency and the curved shapes of the Spetsen gallery provide enormous possibilities as well as great challenges for the artists who tackle it. It is a difficult exhibition space – and thus extraordinarily interesting.

Astrid Svangren’s painting harbours inner tensions and conflicts. It’s figurative versus abstract; delicate drawing versus messy, heavily applied paint; narratives and themes versus spontaneous movement.
 
Recently, Astrid Svangren’s painting has moved out into the space. New surfaces and material are being explored – Plexiglas leaning against the wall, objects reminiscent of furniture, drafting film and fabric that has been folded and stretched. She makes the exhibition space part of her painting – or, if one turns it around, her painting creates a spatial framework for the visitors’ experience of the space, in this case the Spetsen gallery.

Born in 1972 in Gothenburg, Astrid Svangren lives and works in Copenhagen. She was educated at the Forum art school in Malmö and at the Malmö Art Academy.