Anna Bjerger

About

An exhibition of new paintings by Swedish artist Anna Bjerger. Walking, watching, playing, sleeping, smoking, reading, these paintings are of people doing ordinary things, a series of isolated actions. Bjerger has built up a library of research material from out of date reference books, travel journals and instruction manuals which she sifts through and filters over time - referring back to and editing. The build up of a body of work involves searching through this pile of visual material trying to find the missing pieces of the jigsaw. There is a starting point and there is a succession; each choice carrying the piece forward allowing it to evolve in a chain reaction of images and events. Through the directness of the paint handling and the treatment of the image Bjerger is striving to escape the nostalgic qualities often associated with figurative painting allowing her to approach them in unexpected ways. The image is recontextualized, unanchored from it's literal, intended reference allowing a shift away from the generic toward the personal. The act of being remade in paint allows interpretations beyond the initial content of the image; allusions appear allowing new relationships to form between the works. By specifically selecting images where the viewpoint appears unambiguous we are forced to look at these images from the protagonists perspective. In this way the images bare similarities to film stills, we are only shown a fragment of an on going action allowing the paintings to trigger the imagination. As a collection of short stories can create a whole through their idiosyncratic qualities Bjerger wants this body of work to be individually self contained but connected and experienced as a whole. As the title suggests, we are presented with a slow, meandering journey through the landscape leaving a trail, a trail of paint. Anna Bjerger lives and works in Sweden. She studied painting at the Royal College of Art, London and has been showing internationally since. She has recently had exhibitions in Stockholm, Chicago and New York. Her work is included in the collections of Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Gävle Landsting, Sweden, Larsen Collection, Stockholm, Zabludowicz Collection, London and many important private collections.