Ann Edholm »New Painting«

In Ann Edholm's painting every line and form are involved in a quest for their proper place on the canvas. It is a painting constantly located at a breaking point, beyond which the colour becomes painting, and the painting language. This quest involves the artist herself, as well as the viewer in the process. At the same time there is an immediacy manifest in these paintings who bridges the more complex interpretations and paves the way for a personal, and deeply spiritual, encounter with the individual works.

Since the mid 90s the painting of Ann Edholm has moved towards a more calm expression, in contrast to her earlier pieces and their dramatically and psychologically charged qualities.

In Ann Edholm's latest exhibition at Galerie Nordenhake the colour scheme have become more intense, as is noticeable in the bright green and orange colours. In the first room the viewer will find the series Vidöppenstängd ("Wideopenshut", 2000) where the conjunction of two circles and a square constitute the schematic outlines of a face. The title refers to Stanley Kubricks last film "Eyes Wide Shut," where inner and outer events, fantasy and reality, seeing and blindness constantly slides in and out of each other in a visual epic where adultery and fornication serve as important theme.

In the second room the beholder will find a Die (2000) - a large black square against a sharp green background. This painting stands in a direct relation to Edholm's investigation of abstract modernist painting. And "Die" is of course a reply to what often has been described as the first work of minimalist art: Tony Smith's iron cube from 1962.

Ann Edholm is born in Stockholm 1953. 1992-98 she was Professor in Painting at The Royal School of Art, Stockholm. She is currently Professor at the Valand School of Art in Gothenburg. Together with the exhibition a large monograph over Ann Edholm has been published (Ann Edholm [Gothenburg: Raster, 2000], 128 pages.)