Tomas Gustavsson: A Place in the Sun
8 October - 30 October 2026
Opening reception Thursday, 8 October, 5-7 p.m.
I am inspired by nature and the places around my studio - places where many of my stored memories originate. They are the same trees and rocks, the same overgrown paths and light glimmering on the surface of the water between branches and leaves. Much feels familiar, even though nature today has been affected by changing living conditions.
My canvases are prepared with a coarse layer of reddish-pink oil paint. Later in the process, when I scrape and cut into the painting, this ground color emerges. The motifs serve as entry points to underlying planes in a process where the original motif is destroyed and almost completely erased. Precisely there, on the edge of disappearance, a path into the painting opens up - a turning point and a new construction. The colors and light blend with the underlying layers and form new contexts. I often paint a time grid into the image, with a simultaneous then, now, and later.
Tomas Gustavsson was born in 1958. He studied at Västerås Art School and Konstfack in Stockholm. Gustavsson has held solo exhibitions at, among others, Galleri Magnus Karlsson in Västerås and Stockholm, Galleri Wallner in Malmö, Galleri KAZ in Västerås, and Galleri Helle Knudsen in Stockholm.
