Peter Wallström's paintings borrow fusions, disturbances and upheavals from
the dream world. The pictures are more scenography than landscape, more
simulations than objectivity. Much like the dreamer may experience a sense
of deja vu, the paintings evoke a sense of confusion. Segments appear to
float up from past experiences, memories or things that are almost passed
over. In Wallström's images are reflections of both personal recollections
and pieces from our collective consciousness. Fragments from art history
mixed with pop culture elements and own experiences. The pictures are
composed as uniform landscapes but are in fact cuts from various segments,
like film or the flow of images in a dream.
This area of perceptions that seamlessly flow into one another has been
explored in literature and mass culture. Movies like Vanilla Sky or The
Truman Show depicts the ways in which reality seems composed of images and
phantasms. Wallström uses the canvas as a field in which the different
stages are interconnected. Images are elements distributed as backdrops, but
the viewer is never unaware of the zeropoint of the media: the raw canvas
constantly popping out and sometimes taking over.
Curator
Emil Nilsson
About space, depth, surface, character, actors, material, colour,
light. It is all connected, but none of these elements alone can
explain the others.
The paintings can be reminiscent of a theatrical world with
elements and back drops that give the scenes a fictional feel, of
dream or fantasy. The paintings do not have much to do with
reality, or our perception of reality, even if they are not abstract.
Animals, people, trees, different kinds of buildings and weather
all exist here. The material world has left its traces, but the sensuality
in the paintings is merely a reflection with its very specific
colour register.
When I speak of sensuality and of the material world I speak
of it in several ways. That which surrounds us and we try to convey
to one another, is a means of using our senses. But it is also
the ability to, through art, create a new kind of sensitivity
in the transformation from canvas and paint to something
more than just threads of linen and pigment. It can seem so easy
the way the artist applies the paint, layer by layer, and make the
surface shimmer in different nuances, and to even make the raw
canvas shine. It is not as easy as it looks, fundamentally it is an
order made without recipe, it is based on vision and experience
(painters, like blues musicians, usually get better and better
over time because they dare to refine their expression).
Author & critics
Thomas Millroth
Curriculum Vitea
Solo exhibitions (selected)
2021 The Mermaid and The Outer Point of No Return, at Signal - Center for Contemporary Art, Malmö (se)
(with Ami Bergman)
2019 Åstorps Konsthall, Åstorp (se)
2019 Galleri Ping Pong. Malmö (se)
2016 Galleri Thomas Wallner. Simris (se)
2016 Hässleholms Kulturhus Hässleholm, (se)
2016 Galleri Moment. Ängelholm, (se)
2013 Krognoshuset. ”Other Scenes” Lund, (se)
2010 Galleri Rostrum., (se)
Group exhibitions (selected)
2020 Gallery Thomas Wallner ”Polyfoni 5”. Simris, (se)
2018 Malmö So-There. Galleri Thomas Wallner Simris, (se)
2017 High Court c/o Galleri Thomas Wallner Malmö, (se)
2017 På annan plats (Elsewhere). Ystads Konstmuseum Ystad, (se)
2017 Gallery Thomas Wallner ”Polyfoni”. Simris, (se)
2016 Wadström Tönnheim Gallery. Skanör, (se)
2015 Gallery Thomas Wallner ”Polyfoni”. Simris, (se)
Represented
Åstorps Municipality, (se)
Region Skåne, (se)
Hässleholms Municipality, (se)
Ängelhoms Municipality, (se)
Malmöhus County, (se)
Arboga Municipality, (se)
Awards (selected)
2019 Aase och Richard Björklund´s contribution
2017 Lengertz konstpris (Lengertz art prize)
2006 Sveriges Bildkonstnärsfondens arbetsstipendium (The Arts Grants Committee)
2002 Sveriges Bildkonstnärsfondens arbetsstipendium (The Arts Grants Committee)
Represented by Gallery Thomas Wallner Simris, (se)