April 20 - May 18, 2024
We are pleased to present Amanda Karlsson's third solo exhibition at the gallery. Opening reception with the artist present, Saturday, April 20th, from 12:00 PM to 4:00 PM. The exhibition will be presented at 2:00 PM.
>> Discover the artworks in the exhibition
In the exhibition "Hugg", Amanda Karlsson invites us to a spectacle and a call to attack. At the centre stands a sculpture of the artist herself, dressed in hand puppets whose primary feature is teeth. Through the sculpture, Karlsson acts as a director and gives the stage direction - "hugg!" (Swedish for "attack, stab, cut, grab").
As the curtain rises, the performance begins, and a transformation occurs. Through role-playing, we can navigate uncharted territory and explore our boundaries and possibilities beyond our physical bodies. We can create external order by shaping our inner world with creatures, stories, and imaginary realms.
The exhibition consists of oil paintings on canvas and sawn wood. They create a scenography of a performance where the artist deals with subjects of role-playing and the human drive to want to be something else. Karlsson thinks that the performance is set in a forest in autumn, but she is unsure if the play is coherent.
Amanda Karlsson was born in 1989 in Karlstad but lives and works in Gothenburg. In her artistic work, she paints with oil and builds in wood, two-dimensionally and three-dimensionally. She constructs scenographies and stages imagined events, which she then documents and recreates in spatial installations and painting. Her purpose is to formulate stories from a fictional reality alongside our own. Her upbringing in Värmland has created a reality around mythological storytelling, working-class life, and deep forests. She wants to explore our need for narratives in our contemporary society through painting, sculpture, and spatial installations. How a fictional space can act as a stage for our eternal need for comprehensibility. From that place, she wants to find new perspectives and, if not approach a truth, at least process the longing for it.
At Galleri Helle Knudsen, Karlsson has previously presented the exhibitions "Vi är flockdjuren" (2016) and "Beacon" (2020). In 2021, she was awarded the Ståhl Collections Scholarship and created the site-specific installation "Du och vilken arme?" for the collection. In 2023, her exhibition "Igelfesten / The Leech Party" was shown at Värmlands Museum, and this year it continues to Trollhättan Konsthall with an opening on June 1st.
In addition to the solo exhibition "Hugg," Karlsson has been in the spotlight this spring with the acclaimed sculpture "Storvargen" (The Big Wolf) at the Spring Salon at Liljevalchs Konsthall. Moreover, the gallery will show Karlsson's work at two art fairs this year: Market Art Fair in Stockholm and Enter Art Fair in Copenhagen.
Hugg, 2023. Oil on sawn wood, 55 x 47 x 11 cm
The cyclops looks out over the landscape, 2024. Oil on canvas, 65 x 55 cm