Swedish artist, Annika von Hausswolff specialises in suggestion and illusion. She creates work with the ‘truth-teller’ of the modern age — the camera — but manipulates and reimagines the worlds in front of her, to the point at which they begin to cross from reality to fantasy. Andréhn-Schiptjenko have just opened a solo exhibition of her work.
The images in this exhibition sprung from the closure of Polaroid in 2008, when the artist suddenly felt a part of her photographic process irreversibly changed. A tool that had existed to lead and inform her analogue work was suddenly defunct, and the artist felt ‘disarmed’. There is an element of loss in these images, all of which have been ‘dormant in various archives for a long time.’
This body of work is certainly more abstract and suggestive than her many previous works, that are often shot with a bleached-out flash, offering a gritty but playful take on reality, that also touches on the aesthetics of relaxed fashion photography (or perhaps, that should be fashionable photography). The images in this exhibition are more illusory, many flooded with a single colour, with reds, greens and pinks filling the shot with an ethereal presence. Many of the images hint at a psychological state, rather than a purely spatial view, and the artist has studied Jung’s ‘ideas about the archetypes and the complexes.’
The activity in these images is also difficult to really put your finger on. About the Weather shows a couple flooded with rose tones, in a field, in the rain. An image that on first glance looks like a young couple frolicking in the grass, actually shows a man and woman struggling, the man’s dominant arm caught on the woman’s wrist. Or is it? The rain, the woman’s pale summer dress and the man’s crisp white shirt all hint towards a traditionally romantic scene. It is this middle ground that works so well in Hausswolff’s images, creating a space where there are no definitive answers, but lots of hints.
Annika von Hausswolff is showing at Andréhn-Schiptjenko until 26 September.
All images: Courtesy the artist and Andréhn-Schiptjenko
