Ylva Snöfrid

Ylva Snöfrid (née Ogland) was born in Umeå, in the north of Sweden, in 1974. She studied painting already as a child and was later, at the tender age of 18, accepted at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, where she studied between 1993 and 1998. A few years after graduating, in the early 2000s, Snöfrid abandoned painting to work as a curator, more specifically as one of the directors of, the renowned, Tensta Konsthall in Stockholm. She concluded her curatorial experience in 2007 and resumed her career as a full-time practicing artist.

In her paintings and installations, Ylva Snöfrid touches on the archaeology and architecture of the ancient image, and she has created her own visual world, where her persona and artistry have melted together. In connection with the exhibition Ylva Ogland. Diverse Variations of Other Spaces (6 September – 2 November 2014), Röda Sten Konsthall in Gothenburg, Sweden, wrote:

From a very young age, Ylva Ogland mastered painting. She has used the entire register of painting to explore her own experiences, inner worlds and developed her own mythological imagery. Her work ranges from still lifes, composed of various objects from her childhood, portraits of herself and of her mirror twin Snöfrid, to performance-like rituals and sculptural installations. Together, her works create a complex imagery where layers of self-experienced events, fiction and the subconscious merge in a tapestry of melancholy and spiritualism. By blending these different worlds, Ogland creates intuitive shifts in reality, exploring psychic, mental, and philosophical understandings of time and place. As she describes it: “I want the past and the future to be represented in my works, at the same time.”

What about the mysterious, and elusive, “mirror twin” Snöfrid then? According to Sara Arrhenius:

Snöfrid is a creature who exists in a grey shadow world that mirrors the real world, and which represent an alternative reality. Snöfrid is just one of the mythological or real people, objects and images that recur in work after work, creating an intricate, wide-ranging mesh of references. In a manner typical of the artist, Snöfrid also comes in numerous manifestations. She exists as words, as liquid, as images or, like here, as a doll. Her transformations into and shifts between different states are given expression in various performances that have a ritual character.

Earlier Ylva Ogland lived in what seemed to be the real world, while Snöfrid lived behind the mirrors, in the so-called mirror world, (a world which is often described as less than real). Snöfrid has been there since Ylva’s childhood, acting as her mirror twin. Later, she became a part of Ylva’s art. For many years, Ylva brought Snöfrid into the world through rituals and ceremonies, through objects and publications, again and again and again… Until they were finally fused into one – Ylva Snöfrid. This happened in 2017 through (Ylva and Snöfrid’s, 8-hour long, Transmutation Ritual) Mirrored Spring, Snöfrid et Les Contre Espaces, the Oracle and Tondo, in Retour sur Mulholland Drive, at La Panacée, Montpellier, France.

Snöfrid has lived and worked in New York as well as Berlin. In recent years she has divided her time between Athens and Stockholm and has exhibited internationally at venues such as Palais de Tokyo in Paris and Performa in New York. In the spring of 2018, she carried out the extensive performance piece From the Eyes of The Painter, a One Month Performance (March 8 – April 8) at CFHILL in Stockholm. Snöfrid’s work can be found in numerous collections, including Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Chichu Art Museum and Naoshima Fukutake Art Museum Foundation, both in Japan.

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