Lena Mattsson – Unexpected Visit
The Art Gallery at Bohusläns Museum
11.11 2023 - 17.12 2023
Lena Mattsson mainly works with video and film, where she portrays everyday situations that are transformed and which ultimately make us think about deeper questions in our existence. The film triptych Unexpected Visit is shown in the exhibition.
Lena Mattsson is interested in how our perception relates to being, time and space. With a poetic and sensitive visual language, she touches on existential themes in our lives. A magical realism appears in the works, the seemingly obvious takes on another dimension and the works are filled with a deeper symbolism. The contrast between the obvious and a deeper meaning creates a duality between surface and depth that gives tension to her work.
Unexpected Visit
In the film triptych Unexpected Visit, we see how a child/young person climbs up and down a ladder. The symbolism surrounding the ladder is complex and can be interpreted in many different ways and shows all the changes in life, how the child grows up, develops and is socialized into society and perhaps climbs up the social ladder, and then goes down again. The descent means the opposite and that you have to start all over again – the pendulum swings.
In several religions, the steps are mainly depicted as a transition between earthly life and the spiritual. In her films, Lena Mattsson often works metaphorically and adds different layers of film. In the triptych Unexpected Visit, we can see pictures and environments from Lena's childhood home in Kungshamn as well as other well-known places in Bohuslän, such as Hovenäset, Bohus-Malmön and Smögen. We can also see Lena Mattsson's grandfather peeking past. The work can be seen as a metaphorical and poetic journey in past and present. The music for the video work was created by Conny C-A Malmqvist.
Another Brick in the Wall
Outside on the museum facade, the work Another Brick in the Wall is projected, which can be seen during the dark hours of the day. The work depicts a crying woman, where the tears seem to turn into something else? The scene is repeated at a fast pace and refers to the vulnerability of women worldwide. There, feelings are expressed that deal with oppression, lack of freedom and even tenderness, but also a sadness about the situation in the world. Lena Mattsson's work opens up simultaneous events in interior and exterior spaces in both the past and present. Also in this work, the music was created by Conny C-A Malmqvist.
Bohusläns Museum
Projection on the museum's brick wall by Lena Mattsson, music Conny C-A Malmqvist.
November 11 to December 17 at 4-10 p.m
About the artist
Lena Mattsson was born in Kungshamn in 1966 and works in Malmö. She is primarily a video and performance artist, but began her career as a painter. She is also active as a curator for contemporary art. Mattson's own works often refer to art history and film and are in an intense conversation with both the present and history.
She is educated at Målarskolan Forum, now Malmö Art Academy and has shown her works, films and video installations at a number of exhibitions around Sweden and the world, including at the Moderna Museet Malmö, Malmö Konsthall, Malmö Art Museum, Nordic Watercolor Museum, Skärhamn, Nässjö Konsthall, Göteborgs Konsthall, Borås Museum of Modern Art and Island of Light, Smögen and The Art Gallery at Bohusläns Museum, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark, Museum of Contemporary Art, Santiago, Chile, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Museum for Contemporary Art, Roskilde, Denmark, National Art Gallery Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Metropolitan Art Museum, Pusan, South Korea and many more.
Another Brick in the Wall by Lena Mattsson
Music Conny C-A Malmqvist
Bohusläns Museum
11.11 2023 - 17.12 2023
Film documentation: Hendrik Zeitler
Copyright: Lena Mattsson 2023