Meta Isæus-Berlin As I See It

Temporal shifts,
when I look back, I realise that memory is utilised like a kaleidoscope in time.
Multiple events coalesce and are reduced to one single situation.
In slow motion, I see the conversations meander into eternity
while life shifts through birth, old age, plans, and grand projects.
Changes of scenery occur and go by within seconds, like shards
while the inner dialogue goes on with people that may have been dead for decades,
as I see it.

—  Meta Isæus-Berlin

“Realism doesn’t interest me; I find painting that way quite dull,” Meta Isæus-Berlin said in connection with her exhibition Återsken, presented at CFHILL in 2021. For her second solo presentation with us, she has allowed herself to fully embrace her surrealist urges. Her show Nocturnal Logic at Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde already sought to lure the strange out of the seemingly ordinary, in the twilight of waking and dreaming. Tapping into her personal and collective subconscious, Isæus-Berlin surrenders to intuition and omen to explore fragmentary narratives and synchronicity.

In As I See It, Isæus-Berlin proposes a compelling interpretation of non-linear flows of time with paintings in which fragments of past, present and future events meld together. Mythical archetypes are presented alongside depictions of porcelain dogs and flowers from the artist’s garden. Isæus-Berlin once again demonstrates her skillful painting and her sensibility in portraying animals, especially in the bronze sculpture Filosofen [The Philosopher] – a koala tucked into bed.

The kinetic installation piece The Eternal Dinner sees Isæus-Berlin return to water. She has explored this equally destructive and life-giving element throughout her career, from submerged living rooms to erupting fountains, in works such as Ett vattenhem (2001) and Uppvaknandet/Awakening (2014­-2015). Here, its cyclical and temporal aspects are highlighted as the water is gently rocked in a continuous cycle of ebb and flow. The dinner table, set for four, reappears in a painting that imagines an octopus as the source of the motion.

It is a pleasure to welcome back Meta Isæus-Berlin to CFHILL. We are constantly fascinated by the enchanting world that she builds across her works and proud to present an artist who constantly dares to not only challenge her audiences, but, most of all, herself.