272. LINN FERNSTRÖM. “Outgrowth”.

Oil on canvas, 190 x 140 cm.

PROVENANCE:
Gallery Lars Bohman

LITERATURE:
Linn Fernström, Gallery Lars Bohman, 2005, illustrated in colour on page 35.

Linn Fernström, born 1974 in Örebro, Sweden, is one of Sweden's most celebrated contemporary artists, known for his captivating and grandiose works. Her work is distinguished by the slightly surreal expression in which dreamy, sometimes nightmarish, sceneries meet carefully rendered details of bodies, animals and vegetation. Her artistry is characterized by an uncompromising style in which contrasts between the fragile and the powerful constantly recur. Animals have an obvious place in her work. Birds, insects, tigers, mice and monkeys populate her canvases in which she herself often plays the main role. Also characteristic is her use of bright, strong colors against a light background, which, combined with the often macabre and sometimes frightening elements, creates her own expression and storytelling.

The auction's work “Outgrowth” is an excellent example of Fernström's artistic expression. A woman wearing a bast skirt is the absolute center of the work. She wades in vegetation and around her hang sheer garlands of leaves and flowers. She makes a theatrical gesture in which her arms are outstretched and in one hand she holds a severed monkey head. Looking closer at the painting, one discovers a human heart resting on the dense vegetation. A cute little mouse sits on the other side. As in so many of Fernström's paintings, the absurd and the macabre meet the beautiful and the bright, and it is up to the viewer to interpret what is happening.

After studying at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm between 1996 and 2001, Fernström made a big breakthrough in the early 2000s with a series of large solo exhibitions that received wide attention. Fernström has exhibited in prestigious galleries both in Sweden and internationally, and her work is represented in several major prominent collections.