22.5 - 14.6. 2025
Opening reception, Thursday May 22 at 17:00 - 19:00
Galleri Helle Knudsen is pleased to present a scholarship exhibition with Agnes Widbom. The gallery’s art association, Konstsällskapet Våga Se, annually awards several art grants to promising artists. Agnes Widbom was one of the recipients in 2023, receiving 10,000 SEK and the opportunity to hold a scholarship exhibition. This marks Widbom’s first solo exhibition in a gallery.
Agnes Widbom (b. 1990, Stockholm) is an artist based in San Francisco, California. Her work often incorporates found images and photographs from family archives into her paintings. Her recent projects in video, drawing, and writing explore the relationship between the body, the senses, and the surrounding environment.
Widbom studied painting and film at the San Francisco Art Institute and has participated in group exhibitions at the Swedish Institute in Paris, the Museum of Northern California Art in Chico, as well as various artist-run exhibition spaces in Stockholm, Paris, and San Francisco. In the fall of 2024, she presented a video installation in collaboration with Swedish artist Rebecca Digby at Et al. in San Francisco.
Ahead of her solo exhibition at Galleri Helle Knudsen, Widbom reflects on how her recent video, drawing, and text work influences her painting practice. She often uses images from family archives, books, the internet, and other formal and informal collections in her paintings. In contrast, her work with drawing, video, and writing focuses on her bodily processes and immediate surroundings.
While her painting practice requires a meticulous selection of images, her work with video and text has allowed her to embrace a more physically grounded approach to image-making. For instance, she draws on sensory experiences and associations in text and imagery, letting involuntary bodily movements—such as breathing and tremors—guide her process. Whereas her painting has followed a photorealistic approach, video has become a tool for breaking away from representation and engaging with abstraction.
Agnes Widbom, still image from Blowfish, 2024, video work, 19.07 min
Agnes Widbom, still image from Blowfish, 2024, video work, 19.07 min