Astrid Svangren. Divine Horizons #2

About

Working mainly with installation and painting Astrid Svangren produces works that are more a reflection on the process through which they are made, rather than just finished objects. The artist is not interested in telling a story, what matters for her is the time she spends in the studio, and the connection that it is established between her and the installations. In this very intuitive and meditative practice, she seeks to let it go, not to be afraid, and just find her own way, coming into contact with memories, feelings and sensations. She tries to catch a feeling and transform it through the materials.

Making art becomes a ritual. In the same way as in the Brazilian Umbanda rituals, in which a medium gets into a trance and other entities speak through her/his body, the state of mind reached in the studio allows the artist to connect to her own spirituality, without the need of any external stimuli. Other artists reached this state of mind to produce their works, such as, Hilma af Klint, also from Sweden, who, in the same way as Svangren, was very much connected to Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophical ideas. Also influenced by female writers such as Algerian/French Hélène Cixous and Brazilian Clarice Lispector, Astrid Svangren produces works that reaffirm the power of woman, but in a very ethereal and sensuous way. Through her installations she reveals a beautiful feminine sadness and almost decadence.

For the exhibition at KUNSTHALLE São Paulo, she produced a sensorial and immersive installation that resembles theater stage, in which the viewer is welcome to enter to observe the several details. Made with natural materials, such as raffia ribbons, cotton tulle, paper, wax, mostly in skin color, the elements hanging from the ceiling render to the installation a living being character, they form a sort of immense cocoon, in which the viewer is embraced and can feel the movement of the objects, as if they were butterflies flickering and dancing around. Besides the skin color, the artist also includes other colors such as purple, which brings a spiritual and intuitive aspect to the work, symbolizing a metaphysical world, and also yellow, present in most of her installations, which refers to creativity, optimism and enthusiasm for life.