Mamma Andersson

Karin Mamma Andersson
Born Karin Andersson
Luleå, Sweden
Nationality Swedish
Known for Visual art, Contemporary art

Mamma Andersson (born 1962) is a contemporary artist based in Stockholm. She is represented by Galleri Magnus Karlsson, Stockholm, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and David Zwirner, New York. She is one of Sweden's most internationally famous artists. She is married to Swedish contemporary artist Jockum Nordström.

Biography

Mamma Andersson's birthplace and childhood home of Luleå is in North Sweden near the Polar Circle. Born Karin Andersson, she drew and painted from an early age without any family members being interested in art. She studied at the Royal University College of Fine Arts and her nickname Mamma was added at that time to differentiate herself from another student with the same name. She was a mother during her time at art school and has two sons with artist Jockum Nordstrum. She started by painting landscapes because that was what she saw daily as she pushed her kids around in the pram. She worked as a guard at Moderna Museet in Stockholm and was influenced by work of Dick Bengtsson. To learn to paint she found she had to engross herself in others work and cites John E Franzen, Enno Hallek and her "greatest teacher" Dick Bengtsson. (from Moderna Museet 2007. Mamma Andersson, Steidl)

Work

Mamma Andersson's paintings depict domestic interiors, lush landscapes, and genre scenes just welcoming enough to allow their otherworldly air to take hold. Shaped by her upbringing amidst forests and art books, her work is imbued with beguiling narrative zest and frequent references to the stage and everyday settings as well as to works by other artists. Both familiar and mysterious, most of Andersson's works include images of recognizable paintings by other artists as peculiarly placed accessories. In Stairway to the Stars, the ladder-like arrangement of canvases that floats upward before swirling mountains and a black sky includes works by Manet, Hopper, Monet, Gauguin, and Peter Doig. Andersson juxtaposes thickly layered paint and loosely washed areas, painting often with skewed perspectives, irreconcilable spaces, and impossible circumstances coexisting.

Exhibitions

Moderna Museet in Stockholm hosted a large solo exhibition of the artist's work in 2007, curated by Ann-Sofi Noring. The exhibition traveled to Helsingin Taidehalli, Helsingfors, and Camden Arts Centre, London. The exhibition catalogue includes essays by Ann-Sofi Noring, Kim Levin and Midori Matsui, poems by Thomas Tidholm and a conversation between Karin Mamma Andersson and the author and playwright Lars Norén. The artist's prints were exhibited at Crown Point Press in San Francisco, April–May 2009. In 2010, Andersson exhibited at the Aspen Art Museum, Colorado. Her work was the subject of a solo exhibition at Museum Haus Esters in Krefeld, Germany in 2011. She is also represented by David Zwirner Gallery in New York City, where she had three solo exhibitions. Room Under the Influence (2006), Who is sleeping on my pillow (2010), and Behind the Curtain in 2015.

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