Helene Billgren FOR GOOD AND FOR BAD Grafikens Hus c/o Wanås Konst, June 14, 2014
Helene Billgren exhibits her print work for the first time. In these recent works, her independent heroines appear in imaginary landscapes and we are invited into an enchanting and mystical world full of tight jeans, pinecones and flying eyelashes. For Good and For Bad is a collaboration with Grafikens Hus and is on display at Wanås Konst until November 2. Opening with the artist on Saturday, June 14, at 2pm in the Art Gallery at Wanås Konst.
Helene Billgren, pga William, 2014
In her characteristic way, Helene Billgren unites diverse painterly references such as Goya, Dick Bengtsson and the covers of Enid Blyton's The Famous Five books from the 1950s. In the new exhibition, For Good and For Bad, she uses printmaking techniques for the first time. In her paintings, layers of color and brushstrokes build up landscapes. The dramatic landscapes remain in the prints, but pared down and with a new lightness. The figures, often in pairs, are varyingly turned toward or away from us and allow for feelings of both joy and sorrow. A portrait should by definition depict a specific person, but instead Billgren uses mass media advertising imagery and images of actors that she has collected as the basis for these works. In her pictures, the figures become vulnerable and nostalgic but also natural and independent heroines. The adventurous landscapes are simultaneously action and site of action: expansive, impossible and wholly imaginary. As viewers, we can slip in amongst the figures as Helene Billgren combines, without hierarchies, the two art historical genres of portrait and landscape.
Clothes, housewares and knick-knacks have a central role in Helene Billgren's practice, and alternate between object and motif. She has worked with total environments for theater and opera but is most known for her ink and charcoal drawings, which have been populated by a variety of girls and women over the years, such as horse-riding girls and nurses. There are clear parallels with the work of Lena Cronqvist and Marie Louise Ekman, in which a certain cast of characters make recurring appearances.
Helene Billgren was born in Norrköping, Sweden in 1952. She studied at the Valand Academy in Gothenburg, Sweden. Helene Billgren has worked on public art commissions and has exhibited at museums and galleries throughout Sweden. A retrospective exhibition of her work is currently on display at Värmland's Museum. She is represented by Galleri Magnus Karlsson.
The exhibition For Good and For Bad opens at Wanås Konst on June 14 and runs through November 2. The exhibition is produced by Grafikens Hus, a center for contemporary graphic arts. Last winter, Helene Billgren, together with Grafikens Hus printers Jenny Olsson and Cecilia Enberg, created a completely new series of prints that is being shown for the first time in the exhibition For Good and For Bad. After a fire in March 2014, when the art gallery at Grafikens Hus was completely destroyed, a c/o program consisting of exhibitions, workshops and seminars has been instituted at several different venues across Sweden. Follow the process at www.grafikenshus.se and on Facebook.
Press preview
When: Thursday, June 12, at 2pm
Where: Art Gallery, Wanås Konst
Helene Billgren will be present
Opening
When: Saturday, June 14, at 2pm
Nina Beckmann, Director of Grafikens Hus, and Elisabeth Millqvist, artistic director of Wanås Konst, inaugurate the exhibition together with Helene Billgren.
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Dance Me Special Performance Saturday June 14 at 3.30 pm
These are bodies, These are motions, This is the place
Benoît Lachambre and Rachel Tess (more information
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Upcoming:
Dance Me, performance and lecture, by Damien Gilley, Choreographic Sculpture, with Rachel Tess, Friday July 11 at 4 pm.
Wanås Konst/The Wanas Foundation 2014:
The Park and the Film Room Dance Me Molly Haslund, Christian Jankowski, Tadashi Kawamata, Sigalit Landau, Skånes Dansteater, Rachel Tess, Salla Tykkä
The Art Gallery UNVERGESSEN (Graf Spee III) Juan Pedro Fabra Guemberena, Carl Michael von Hausswolff, Jan Håfström
The Childrens’s Book Hur man blir en sten, Klara Kristalova and Martina Lowden
Donation Interlettre Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd
The Café Frön Elna Jolom
Exhibition Season May 18 – November 2, 2014
May 18 – Sep. 28, 11 am – 5 pm daily
Additional opening hours: June 21 – Aug. 17, 10 am – 5 pm daily
Oct. 4 – Nov. 2, 11 am – 5 pm weekends
The Park is open daily, year-round, 8 am – 7 pm
Wanås Konst/The Wanas Foundation
Visit: Wanås, SE-289 90 Knislinge, Sweden
Postal address: PO Box 67, SE-289 21 Knislinge, Sweden
For questions and further information, please contact:
Sofia Bertilsson, 46 (0)733 86 68 20, press@wanaskonst.se
Web: www.wanaskonst.se
Newsroom: http://news.cision.com/wanas-konst (download high resolution images)
Wanås is a place in the world where art, nature and history meet. Since 1987 exhibitions of Swedish and international contemporary art have taken place, with a focus on site-specific installations. Today the sculpture park holds more than 50 permanent works, created specifically for Wanås Art by artists such as Ann Hamilton, Jenny Holzer, Yoko Ono and Ann-Sofi Sidén et al. Wanås consist of a medieval castle, an organic farm, a scenic sculpture park and an art gallery. Art is also installed in stable and barn buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries.
Wanås Konst is run by The Wanås Foundation. A non-profit foundation in Östra Göinge municipality, in the South of Sweden, only 1.5 h from Copenhagen, Denmark. Founding Director Marika Wachtmeister initiated the art projects at Wanås in 1987. Since 2011 the foundation is lead by Elisabeth Millqvist and Mattias Givell. Read more at www.wanaskonst.se
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