Första kvällen (The First Evening)

Sixten Sandra Österberg’s production is characterized by her rendering of human bodies, taking shape on the canvas, whilst also losing their form, as they pulsate between realism and abstraction. Realistically depicted environments, and characters, dissolve into fragmentary stillness or explosive discharges of paint. This creates a complex duality where the different modes of expression together form an enigmatic world for the viewer to decipher. Detailed portraits of people from various subcultures, mainly queer, float in and on layers of paint - allowing space for other, not always given, expressions, gestures and readings.

Första kvällen (The First Evening) was one of, in total, eleven paintings in Österberg’s debut solo exhibition, Förlorad form, at CFHILL, Stockholm in the autumn of 2021. The, carefully chosen, title of the exhibition (Swedish for Cire perdue) relates to sculpture and the ancient technique of lost-wax casting. Österberg may be a painter, but she compares her work to that of a sculptor. In the same way that clay and wax are kneaded and reused, she molds the oil paint.

The paintings are hyper-realistic and abstract at the same time. A woven rug turns into pure colour, a body slips almost imperceptibly from being faithfully reproduced to becoming a compact layer of paint. The viewing begins in the familiar and recognizable, but the dissolved forms open the images to new sentiments and interpretations. In his introduction to Förlorad form Pedro Westerdahl (born 1975, Swedish art historian, writer and curator) wrote:

Sixten Sandra Österberg, works primarily with painting in a depicting classical tradition. The shapes are often distilled through a deconstructive process which leaves room for unexpected gestures and expressions. In the borderland between physical presence and a state of dissolution, her painting captures, through the materiality of approach and technique, fleeting situations and sensations.

Österberg herself, followed up, in the same article, by describing how her painting was related to the art of sculpting: “— I, myself, feel more like a sculptor than a painter and am interested in the artistic problem of breaking up physicality and how classic images can be reconstructed during the creative process.”

The starting point for said creative process is often photographs of her circle of friends (or, sometimes, sourced/found images). When the main work begins, however, the physical act of painting takes over and leads the process on to new, often surprising, results. Her aesthetic is marked by a form of “non-practice”, or deviation from established rules for depiction. Instead of a face, the viewer might encounter a back or merely a fragment of a hand. In her unique world of images, Österberg creates a kind of hybrid painting with its own coloration and gaze.

Första kvällen (The First Evening) is, most likely, based on a sourced, or found, photographic image. The enigmatic composition, depicting three unknown elderly ladies, proved to be the most popular painting in Österberg’s exhibition at CFHILL in 2021, attracting large crowds. Visitors flocked around the beguiling, but intriguing, painting as it hung next to the entrance to the main gallery. The elusive identity of the ladies and the mysteriously opaque title of the work gave rise to many questions and theories about the anonymous women, whose number matches the three primary Norns (deities in Norse mythology responsible for shaping the course of human destinies) Urðr, Skuld and Verðandi, representing the past (Urðr), future (Skuld) and present (Verðandi). These three Norns described as mysterious, and powerful, women, would visit a newborn child, on the first evening, to determine that person’s future.

Provenance

CFHILL, Stockholm, Sixten Sandra Österberg. Förlorad form, 10 – 24 November 2021.

Firestorm Foundation (acquired from the above).

Exhibitions

CFHILL, Stockholm, Sixten Sandra Österberg. Förlorad form, 10 – 24 November 2021.

Copyright Firestorm Foundation