Stephen Friedman Gallery is delighted to present Swedish artist Andreas Eriksson’s third solo exhibition at the gallery entitled ‘Kria’. Eriksson is a painter who lives and works in Medelplana, Sweden. The artist is known for the unique way he examines nature and the history of painting to portray the quiet beauty that underscores everyday life.

‘Kria’, (Swedish for ‘school assignment’), features new paintings and explores the themes of repetition, the act of looking and the passing of time. In gallery one, a suite of large scale-paintings of equal size are divided into day and night and are all inspired by the same drawing.

The daytime works possess the elliptical colour tone of winter’s natural light while the night-time works offer more opaque variations of blackness. The paintings reveal stark combinations of colour and texture. Thinly applied paint in subdued tones of green, blue, grey and ochre sit alongside pronounced areas of thick impasto. Built up in fragments and rendered in a variety of loose and controlled applications of oil paint, each painting contains elements of representation and abstraction and resembles both topographical maps and gestural abstractions.

The paintings are a window to nature and prolonged examination uncovers trees, earth and rock formations in the compositions. In the darker paintings, oil is applied to un-primed canvas resulting in a rich, build-up of colour shades. Like the development of an analogue photograph, the paintings appear to be slowly coming to the surface through a foreground of darkness.

In gallery two, Eriksson presents a series of small-scale paintings entitled ‘Skolk’, (Swedish for ‘truancy’). Compositionally, these works are not mapped out ahead of time. Instead, instincts and intuition play a part in how the artist interprets nature on any given day. These paintings are a testament to the simple joy Eriksson derives from applying paint to a surface.

In the artist’s own words, this exhibition confronts “…the contemporary problem of trying to create something original.” Eriksson’s strength lies in his ability to elicit a palpable sense of texture and place, both in nature and his studio. And by relying on serendipity and chance, the artist elicits new discoveries and opportunities in his paintings.

A catalogue of the exhibition will feature a text by Gilda Williams, writer and London correspondent for Artforum, and a printed interview between the artist and curator Alida Ivanov, editor of the catalogue. Andreas Eriksson was born in 1975 in Björsäter, Sweden. He lives and works in Medelplana on the south bank of Lake Vänern, Sweden.

Notable solo exhibitions include: Public art commission, Nya Karolinska Sjukhuset, Solna (2018); ‘Röta, bråka, skäkta och häckla’, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm, Sweden which toured to Trondheim Kunstmuseum, Norway; Centre PasquArt, Biel, Switzerland and the Reykjavik Art Museum, Iceland (2014-2015); ‘The Imminence of Poetics’ 30th Sao Paulo Biennial, Sao Paulo, Brazil (2012); The Nordic Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2011, Venice, Italy (2011); ‘Roundabout the hardship of believing’ and ‘Walking the Dog, Lying on the Sofa,’ MUMOK, Vienna, Austria (2008).

Notable group exhibitions include: Summer Days, Serlachius Museum, Mäntää, Finland (2017); ‘Making and Unmaking’ curated by Duro Olowu, Camden Arts Centre, London (2016); Swedish Art: Now!, Sven–Harry’s Art Museum, Stockholm, Sweden; ‘Samtid’, Lidköpings Konstförening, Sweden (2016) ‘To Levitate in Painting Andreas Eriksson and Michel Majerus’, Michel Majerus Estate, Berlin, Germany (2013); Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Wien, Austria (2010); ‘Modernautställningen 2010’, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden (2010); ‘Life Forms’, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm, Sweden (2009); ‘Momentum 2009 – 5th Nordic Biennal of Contemporary Art’, Moss, Norway (2009).

Eriksson’s works are included in prominent collections internationally including: Gothenburg Museum of Art, Sweden; Moderna Museet, Sweden; Skövde Art Museum, Sweden; National Public Art Council, Sweden; Sundsvall Museum, Sweden; Uppsala Art Museum, Sweden; MUMOK, Vienna; FRAC, Auvergne, France; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo, Norway.