Cecilia Hillström Gallery
CHART | ART FAIR 2018

Cecilia Hillström Gallery is pleased to show a duo presentation with the sculptor Katja Larsson, born 1987, and painter Linnea Rygaard, born 1990, at CHART Art Fair 2018. Rygaard presents new largescale paintings, while Larsson presents her sculpture series Cat©Compact, most recently shown at Borås Konstmuseum. Rygaards strong, architectural paintings are juxtaposed against Larsson’s powerful sculptures, adding new dimensions and unexpected connections both visually and conceptually.

In Katja Larsson’s sculpture series Cat©Compact, the castings of the buckets of an excavator refers to housing projects in affluent London areas. When expanding exclusive town houses by creating new basement floors, it is considered more cost efficient to bury the excavators than to extract them once the excavation is done. The excavators become future artefacts or offerings to an imaginary higher power. In Larsson’s art, objects are often transformed through casting and change of materiality to become something faintly recognizable and alien. Both man-made objects and objects found in nature seem to carry a hidden truth in Larsson’s universe, which may be seen in the light of the Anthropocene epoch.

For Linnea Rygaard, the central perspective is key to the process of painting and contributes to an almost overwhelming experience. Breathtaking depth is put in stark contrast to roughly cutout symbols or shapes, lingering on the surface of the canvas. Linnea Rygaard’s juxtaposition of perspective and symbols creates an imbalance which requires attention and concentration. Rygaard uses an ambivalent scale in her paintings, playing with macro and micro perspectives, highlighting the dissolution between various dimensions.The starting point for Linnea Rygaard is always a strong interest in the pure craftsmanship involved in painting and the fascination of the empty canvas. There is a gap between the plan to create a specific painting and the knowledge and skill it requires, but also a constant strive for reaching out to the viewer – a balancing act between manipulation and communication.

Katja Larsson (b. 1987) is a Swedish artist based in London. She graduated from The Slade School of Fine Art (MFA in Sculpture) in 2015, and received her BA in Fine Art Photography from Glasgow School of Art with 1st class honours in 2013. The same year she was shortlisted for the Saatchi Gallery’s New Sensations Award. Exhibitions include Borås Konstmuseum, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London, ADP Residency Exhibition, European Investment Bank, Luxembourg, Cecilia Hillström Gallery, OK Corral in Copenhagen, Chelsea Arts Club and UCL Art Museum in London. In 2017, Larsson received a public sculpture commission for East Dunbartonshire Culture and Leisure. In 2014, she was a finalist for the National Sculpture Prize, Broomhill Sculpture Park, UK. Larsson is represented in the collections of Public Art Agency Sweden, Stockholm County Council and Stockholm School of Economics.

Linnea Rygaard (b. 1990) holds an MFA from the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm (2016) and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, USA, in 2015. Rygaard was awarded the Royal Institute of Art’s residency at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris in 2016. Rygaard’s work has been shown at The Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Stockholm, HILDE Gallery, Los Angeles, Cecilia Hillström Gallery, Liljevalchs, Vargåkra Gård Konsthall and in group shows at Galleri Thomassen, Gothenburg, ANNAELLE Gallery and Galleri Olsson, Stockholm. Public commissions include a mural painting for Stockholm City Council/Stockholm Konst and site-specific paintings for Uppsala municipality. Rygaard is represented in the collection of Uppsala Konstmuseum.