Mamma Andersson

Swedish painter Mamma Andersson works between domestic interiors and the Nordic landscape, often layering imagery to create subtly haunting, dreamlike atmospheres. Drawing from a variety of sources—from the narrative suggestions of filmic imagery to the physical space of theatrical sets—Andersson employs disjointed perspectives and mismatched spatial relationships to create a sense of the otherworldly.

Her palette is seductive and muted, applied in both soft washes and thick brushstrokes, and sometimes entirely absent, with blank areas left on the surface of the painting. The works often include windows, reflections, and depictions of other paintings, destabilizing the work’s setting and providing fleeting glimpses of worlds beyond the present. And the interiors themselves have an in-between feeling, bringing together spaces like stage sets, classrooms, and living rooms, where public and private experience often bleeds together. In all of the work, there is an implication of ambiguous narratives. The familiar is made strange, and architecture, pictures, and memory are conflated into a single indeterminate, hallucinatory image.

Mamma Andersson’s AAM exhibition was her first solo museum exhibition in the United States and was accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, including essays by exhibition curator Heidi Zuckerman; Laura Hoptman, Curator at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and Dominic Molon, Chief Curator at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. Her work Sleeping Standing Up, 2003 was featured on Aspen Skiing Company’s 2010–2011 ski season lift ticket.