• Harry Anderson

    Written by Art & Culture

    Harry Anderson is a Stockholm-born artist and comic illustrator. During the early years of his career, he focused on creating paintings, drawings, and comics inspired by his own life experiences as well as urban culture and the feeling of a lack of love in his life. His works often feature confident women, flowers, death, cats, liquor bottles, broken hearts, and butterflies mixed with dark and humorous text. Anderson's technique was inspired by comic artists such as Niklas Jönsson, Bil Eriksson, and Ester Eriksson. He has been published in Svenska Dagbladet and Hjälp magazine, and co-created the comic series Söndagsbarn with his sister, Rut Andersson, depicting his own childhood. He has also written a self-biographical novel, Livet är inte alltid Hawaii, in which he talks about friendship and alcohol addiction. In recent years, Anderson has turned to sculpting in ceramics, experimenting with materials and forms to create works that balance between function and art.

    What are you working on right now? /Tell us about your exhibition during Stockholm Art Week?

    I’m glazing the last five sculptures that are going to be part of my exhibition titled “Köttet är svagt / The flesh is weak”, at Saskia Neuman Gallery, opening the 4th of May. The exhibition is about balance. Balance in my relationships, my work, and my social life. And, that it’s ok to falter.  It’s also about acceptance.

    What inspired you to become an artist, and how has your artistic journey evolved over time?

    Being free and creative is my biggest inspiration for becoming an artist.  My artistic journey started with drawing, right now it resides in sculpture. But it’s ever moving and therefore always evolving. My whole “plan” with being an artist is that I should always be moving. I feel I have stories to tell. Painting, embroidery, and sculpture are some of the mediums I work with. I would love to work with silicon and tin in the future.

    What is your creative process like, and how do you approach developing new ideas and concepts for your work?

    I keep a tight routine and schedule. I’m in the studio 9 hours a day, and constantly working.  If I have a creative stand still, I just make something. I prefer to keep busy, and I trust that the process of working gives birth to something down the line. I usually work with things that I’ve gone through. Things in life, relationships, good times, bad times… all of that. Then I disguise those feelings, emotions or happenings in a material of my choosing (at the moment it’s clay) and connect or “apply” the sculptures to a greater happening like the Rapture for instance.

    Can you tell me about a specific artwork or series of works that are particularly meaningful to you and why?

    Albin Welles performance “Zygorax Lord of Spells” moved me to tears.  In this work, Albin Werle created and embodied a wizard named Zygorax who lived alone, heartbroken and isolated in a tower. In this tower he wrote songs and one day he climbed down the stairs and sang his songs of heartbreak to us. The room was dark and Zygorax dressed in a robe, a pointy hat and sad face makeup sat behind a synthesizer. The style of the music was in the same style as the great Daniel Johnston. The inspiration for Werles work came from a real-life heartbreak and whilst he was performing the person who caused the hurt was sitting in the audience.  That was powerful. This work was meaningful to me because the honesty and the passion behind it. Two things I strive to achieve in my own work.

    Do you have a favorite Swedish Artist?
    Yes, I have many, here are a few:

    Dick Bengtsson, Nadine Byrne, Emma Carlén, Gustav Gaston, Lisa Lundgren, August Nilsson, Sara Sjölin, Albin Werle.

    Do you have a favorite bar or restaurant in Stockholm
    I’ve been hanging out at Den Gyllene Freden a lot. A great bar with fun people.

  • Thomas Broomé

    Written by Art & Culture


    Thomas Broomé moves uninhibited between different techniques and materials in his artistry. With a curiosity and thirst for knowledge, he draws information and fuel from art history, science and philosophy. His interdisciplinary investigations turn into paintings, drawings, sculptures, video and installations that mix the logical with a touch of madness.

    What are you working on right now? /Tell us about your exhibition during Stockholm Art Week?
    At the moment I am completing the final touches for a big public artwork in Gothenburg. The project is set to open on the 24th of May atop the GoCo Centre of Health and Innovation and will consist of five sculptures. The sculptures will produce an optical illusion through the use of the viewer’s movement. By changing the viewing angle the sculptures will turn from opaque to transparent, thus illustrating the fragility of mankind.

    The show at Galleri Magnus Karlsson is called MirrorLand and is a journey into an ambivalent and fractured world. MirrorLand is not a simple reflection of the visual world, but rather mirroring our contemporary world through texts and concepts. At the moment, MirrorLand remains dynamic and open to interpretation, thus allowing me the access to build upon the ideas and concepts discussed throughout the exhibition in it’s current form. I am ecstatic about resuming my work and exploring the world of MirrorLand further. As our reality seems to be ever-changing, MirrorLand reflects those shifts in paradigms, creating an endless flux in the relationships between the many interpretations of ”reality”.

    What inspired you to become an artist, and how has your artistic journey evolved over time?
    I am very much a wild card since I never really had any contact with art in my childhood. It was people around me like my teachers who said: ”the only thing that boy can be is an artist”. I am very grateful for that since it has opened up the world in so many ways for me. I always feel a sense of wonderment in being able to be an artist with all that it implies. During the years I have been a researcher, a teacher and have been lucky enough to show my work all around the world. Which is truly amazing for a young boy from the wrong side of the road.


    What is your creative process like, and how do you approach developing new ideas and concepts for your work?
    When I was at culinary school and we were boiling meat stock in gigantic pots, something I had never seen or done before, we would chuck in all the leftovers that weren’t garbage: vegetable peel, meat, bones, tendons from cleaning a steak, and any other tasty morsels that could add flavour to the ever-simmering pot that would sometimes cook for days. Nothing was wasted, and I really liked that process. Then, when we felt it was done (or when our teacher told us) we strained off whatever was still, surprisingly, solid and began reducing the liquid by boiling it violently, until all that remained was something we called meat glaze. This tasty and complex gelatinous substance was then used in our daily cooking to add flavor to a variety of dishes. A little goes a long way, or a lot becomes very little.

    I often compare my artistic practice to making stock; I collect small fragments of ideas and observations that are boiled down, mashed together into a not always that appetising obsession. I never know what will captivate me or sometimes even why. But here I am, with my meat glaze, somewhat disappointed by this jelly-like, brown, umami-smelling idea. Should this really fascinate me, eat my time for what currently seems like an unfathomable future?

    Can you tell me about a specific artwork or series of works that are  particularly meaningful to you and why?
    There are a series of paintings by Dick Bengtsson called the ”The Domburg Suite”, that inspired me a lot. It is a meditation of a painting by Mondrian that slowly and quite surprisingly turns into a swastika. Overall I am very inspired by Swedish Art from the sixties and seventies. Marie-Louise Ekman, Kjartan Slettermark and Öyvind Fahlström all provide a consistent yet exciting dialogue, which challenges my own perceptions of what art can be.

    What do you think of Stockholm as an art city?
    Stockholm is a melting pot and is therefore open to many interpretations of art, making it a cultural hub for creative works. However, I do feel that the current art scene is perpetuated by a similar style of artworks, an apparently shared anxious feeling to produce art that works, instead of art that challenges and deconstructs. Art in it’s critical description requires an open environment, the contemporary world around us feels as though it has lost it’s sense of revolution and the artworks produced provides safety in it’s place. This is a problem prevalent in the institutions as well as among artists situated in Stockholm.

    Do you have a favorite Swedish Artist?
    I do not really believe in the idea of favourites. Art is always evolving and it is the dialogue with other artists that is important, not who is considered to be the best today.

    Do you have a favorite bar or restaurant in Stockholm?
    I do enjoy authentic Chinese food and my current favourite is Eat East on Kungsholmen. It is a fantastic restaurant that serves food which takes me back to Shanghai.

  • Nicklas Randau

    Written by Art & Culture

    Originally from Skåne, Nicklas Landau is an abstract painter based in Malmö. The artist mainly relies on oil paint, using tools but also his hands to create his pieces. In order to achieve his desired effects he will work for extended durations, becoming immersed in his art work.

    What are you working on right now? /Tell us about your exhibition during Stockholm Art Week?
    I am working with a series of abstract images that I think are a bit like courtyards - you need a key and it takes a while before you as a viewer get access inside and can wander around there. The key in many cases is time and to some extent interest and patience. During Stockholm Art Week I will show oil paintings as well as works on paper.    

    What inspired you to become an artist, and how has your artistic journey evolved over time?
    I saw a feature film about the American painter Basquiat when I was 13 and bought paint and canvas the very next day. It was powerful to find something that could be creative and questioning at the same time as it was healing and therapeutic.   

    What is your creative process like, and how do you approach developing new ideas and concepts for your work?
    The creative process goes on, in a sense, around the clock. Information and experiences are gathered all the time and then processed on an intuitive level in the studio. Sometimes I have no idea why I'm painting something, but afterwards I can understand and kind of feel it - a bit like a dream that can take a while to decipher. Literature, film and music have a big impact but I can't explain how it happens.    

    Can you tell me about a specific artwork or series of works that are particularly meaningful to you and why?
    The drawings of the Swedish painter Carl Fredrik Hill are the first that come to mind, they are raw, childish, direct, imaginative and often extremely strange and beautiful.   

    What do you think of Stockholm as an art city?
    It seems to be vivid and alive again after the pandemic!

    Do you have a favorite Swedish Artist?
    I have tons of favorites but If I have to name only one I would say Åke Göransson has had a big impact on my own work.

    Do you have a favorite bar or restaurant in Stockholm?
    I live in Malmö but when I'm in Stockholm I like to visit Lao Wei for food, the Mediterranean Museum's cafe (drinking coffee overlooking several thousand year old sculptures and ceramics has a certain feeling) and then I think the bar Lochness is fun with its small batches of Czech pilsner!

Pages