Liselotte Watkins Altre Stanze

Longing Liselotte Watkins’s new works hint at a new reality. In these pale, pastel interiors, objects and furniture are arranged into geometric, jigsaw-like patterns. A pedestal, a chair, a bedframe, a bust. These innocent subjects may invite interpretation as light-hearted, decorative depictions of traditional homes in South Europe–but is that really what they are? The windows and the paintings seem to serve the same function; they act as peep holes to the open landscape and the mournfully distant freedom that used to be.

Altre Stanze, or “Other Rooms”, was created during the spring of 2020 in Rome, which is Liselotte Watkins home since many years. Italy was the nation in Europe that suffered the brunt of the pandemic’s impact early on, and endured the severest restrictions in the wake of its outbreak. A lockdown was instituted, and suddenly, an entire population, including the artist’s family, was in involuntary isolation. However, paradoxically enough, this isolation opened up new artistic avenues. Watkins’s earlier paintings focus on archaic female bodies. In these works, her godesslike beings have descended to reality, and the powerful claustrophobic dissonance that arises between the conventional spaces and the opulent, vibrant bodies produces an effect reminiscent of Sigrid Hjertén’s interiors, which were made a century earlier. A dynamism arises there, as playfulness confronts solemnity.

This summer’s exhibition will be Liselotte Watkins’s third show at CFHILL. It’s always a great privilege to get to follow an artist this closely over the years. The last time, about two years ago, her works were shown alongside works by modernist Sigrid Hjertén, as mentioned above–this project was inspired by the SVT programme Konsthistorier (“Art Histories”), in which living artists were brought together with historical ones.

In Altre Stanze, besides her most recent pieces, we will also present a selection of the objects from her exhibition last summer at Villa San Michele, objects which started out as vases and urns bought from markets, all with shapes that date back to the classical era. Liselotte Watkins has also collaborated with weaving studios in South Italy to translate her subjects to textile pieces. She observes no hierarchies, and no limitations. Not even when in lockdown. CFHILL would like to extend our warmest thanks to Liselotte Watkins for this, her fourth exhibition with us!