Lars Nilsson – Botanical Stripes
text Jahwanna Berglund
photography Harrison Wakley
Carling Dalenson Gallery, 19 November–17 December 2025
In his latest exhibition Botanical Stripes at Carling Dalenson, Lars Nilsson invites us into a world where memory, craft, and cultivated nature intertwine. Known to many for his decades-long career in haute couture working for houses such as Chanel, Dior, Lacroix, and Ricci, Nilsson has in recent years turned his gaze homeward. From his studio in Rättvik in Dalarna, he continues to refine his language of form, translating fashion’s discipline and attention to detail into objects that breathe with tactile intimacy.
The exhibition unfolds through watercolor collages and sculptural candleholders, each piece resonating with the artist’s fascination for structure within apparent spontaneity of what he calls the “organized chaos” of English gardens. Inspired by the 17th-century topiary landscape of Levens Hall, Nilsson explores how nature’s geometry and human touch coexist. His collages evoke the depth of Dutch still-life painting: floral compositions emerging from shadow, delicate yet deliberate. In The Pottery Floor, a work referencing Villa San Michele in Capri, patterned stones are reimagined as rhythmic, almost textile motifs currently being translated into a woven tapestry at the Alice Lund studio in Borlänge.
photography Andreas Zetterqvist
Stripes, a motif that has followed Nilsson from his couture days run like a quiet pulse throughout the exhibition. In the candleholders, the pattern materializes in tactile contrasts: oak against wool, porphyry beside glass, bronze next to ceramic. All materials are locally sourced, assembled in collaboration with craftspeople across Sweden, from Nittsjö ceramics and Bergdala glassworks to Morell’s metal foundry. These sculptures stand as both domestic objects and miniature landscapes, echoes of the Dalarna forests and English gardens that shaped Nilsson’s imagination.
In Botanical Stripes, Nilsson continues a conversation between craft and couture, between discipline and instinct. The result is a body of work that feels both rooted and fluid, quietly celebrating the persistence of beauty in the handmade.
