The untamed energy is almost palpable, vibrating like an impatient power field. A chandelier in pink glass reigns supreme at the top of the ceiling, Marie-Louise Ekman instructs her colleagues up in a lift on how she wants it. The glass fixture will reach almost all the way down to the floor when it is completed.
It will be four meters tall, says Marie-Louise Ekman.
During the ongoing installation at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, she makes no secret of her eagerness to return to work. She hurries through the large halls and lands surrounded by her newly created oils, in a performance unusual for the artist and format. Although she has worked in large formats before, but then more like comic strips with several stories, in length. Now she has created "high-rise" works focused on one person, one story.
I do not want to repeat myself. But some themes never leave me. The woman is always there, and superiority and subordination. It can be varied infinitely, it is inexhaustible, she says.
Beneath the surface
The floor is partially covered with "mats" of art. Black figures in the form of everyday objects stand out against the deep red: a hammer, a pair of scissors. Needle and thread. Everyday objects that at the same time radiate something ominous – the hammer lies broken in two, with jagged fracture surfaces.
– Art is my diary entries, my way of decoding reality. I depict what I experience.
And the everyday is strange if you look closely.
– There is a tendency to see everyday life as simple and harmless. But it is complicated, contains many underlying emotions. Like grief.
Footprints in the sand
She gets new energy from meetings with her fellow human beings. And her husband Gösta Ekman, whom she had 29 years with, is still very much present.
The mental imprints remain, like footprints in the sand. The dead are part of our reality even if they do not have any bodies, says Marie-Louise Ekman.
With Gösta, there was no small talk. He had an unbeatable way of talking. A way of expressing himself that was always important, fun. Pleasurable.
Marie-Louise Ekman is currently exhibiting with two exhibitions that open on August 23. One, at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, consists of entirely new works – paintings, installations, wall and floor paintings. Here, sculptures in glass are also on display, including a four-meter-high fixture created during her time on the "glass island" of Murano in Venice.
In parallel, a larger retrospective exhibition opens at CF HILL in Stockholm.
Marie-Louise Ekman's diverse artistic work is extensive. She is an artist, playwright, director, and author.
Ekman was born in 1944. Since her debut in 1967 at Galleri Karlsson in Stockholm, she has moved between painting, graphics, textiles, stage design, film, sculpture, and theater.
In her creative work, there are references to both works from art history and to modern expressions, such as comic strips. The motifs are often everyday environments that become twisted and absurd.
In 1984, she became the first female professor at the University College of Arts in Stockholm, where she later was the principal.
During the period 2009–2014, she was the head of Dramaten in Stockholm.
Sources: TT and others.
