Student Art Exhibition

Anna Kryvoruchko´s ink drawing.

The other day I went with a friend to look at Folkhögskolornas vårsalong (= the Spring exhibition of the folk high-schools) at the regional museum, which is a jury assessed collection of artistic works by art students from the folk high-school at Sunderbyn and the Swedish-Finnish folk high-school. The jury is made up of teachers and representatives from the museum. Every student has been allowed to enter three works, and there has not been any particular theme or any particular requirements on techniques. With a few exceptions, the exhibition is mostly made up of paintings.

While many of the students are clearly very gifted, there were very few works that really made an impression, I thought. My favourite is probably this doodle-like ink drawing, washed with coffee (which makes such a wonderful sepia colour, I think): "Jag drömmer efter sagorna mor läste för mig" (= My dreams, inspired by the fairytales my mother read to me) by Anna Kryvoruchko. You can see more of her stuff here. It has an emotional energy that I like very much, and a lot of contrast, which I am always drawn to. Unfortunately, it was mounted behind glass and hung across from a window, making it very difficult to photograph without getting a glaring reflection obscuring the image. This is the best I could do.

I was also charmed by a collection of mini-watercolours by Linn Winnerstad, entitled "Story of my life", a series with frogs. Very cute. She is a member of the cooperative Studio 31.

I very much like this watercolour by Sanna Annala, "Jullov" (= Christmas holidays). I image it is the mother after two weeks of having the kids in the house with new toys. It has true feeling in it, I think, real vitality.

This sculpture, "Moment 5" by David Skarpsvärd was another rather impressive piece, made from ceramics, concrete and metal. Next to it is "Cybernetic organism" by Johan Reimers. I find that many of the younger artists are more influenced by pop culture (in which I include goth, manga, vampyres, sci-fi, television, and new age religiosity), while many of the older artists seem more inclined to work therapeutically with situations most people can relate to. Yes, that is a portrait of Benedict Cumberbatch (as Sherlock) in the background, by Oskar Lindblad.

Only two works were in-your-face political, I thought: a painting by Felix Holmström commenting on the housing shortage (which is becoming acute and troubling, actually) and Joakim Hegsund´s painting "Ukraina". Of course, I totally forgot to snap both of them, but hopefully the links work (both were featured in the local press).