Meta Isæus-Berlin Interviewed by Agnes Braunerhielm

Right now, Meta Isæus-Berlin is on everybody’s lips. Her exhibition Nocturnal Logic at Prince Eugen's Waldemarsudde with new installations, sculptures and paintings, has pleased the world of art critics as well as the public.

“Meta Isæus-Berlin’s installation art is reflected in the painting, which speaks to all the senses”, writes art critic Birgitta Rubin in Dagens Nyheter and proclaims her fascination with Isæus-Berlin’s new work.

Nocturnal Logic is a thematically exciting and exquisite exhibition of painting and installation art, about how your perspective can shift in the night. Insights, different ways of seeing previously familiar patterns, and truths that might hurt. Old memories resurface, as if carved into the darkness. When morning comes, we shake off these thoughts and welcome the bright, pure light of day.

At CFHILL, we're currently presenting a Meta Isæus-Berlin showroom of additional new paintings and sculptures by the artist. We met in her studio in Kungsholmen in Stockholm, and here she tells us about the some of her latest works, some currently at CFHILL.

Återberättelsen om stolen, 2019, oil on canvas.
– I always do one sculpture and then one painting of the sculpture. This one, Återberättelsen om stolen (The retelling of the chair), is a painting of one of the sculptures in the installation currently seen at Waldemarsudde. It’s an interpretation of when you’ve seen a work of art and you retell it to someone, and that way it lives further. And of course there’s always a small change to the story – you can never retell it all. When you look back at life, I think it’s like that all the time. It’s the experiences you carry within you that form you, and at the same time, and just as much, your life is these experiences retold. 

– To be precise, this painting is actually a painting of a sculpture that is mirroring itself. So… Återberättelsen om stolen is the retelling of a work which, in turn, is a mirror of itself. It’s very meta! Ha ha. 

Why does furniture always reappear in your art?
– Furniture exists as a sign for life. The meaning of a chair is as simple as can be: All of us sit down. It’s something we all share. It’s like a joined language. If I make a chair or a dinner table, for example, almost everyone has a relation to that, so if it’s frozen down, you feel it’s scary. You can tell many stories by using objects that everyone has a relation to. That’s why I also work with water, you don’t have to explain water, even if you could. Everyone knows what it is and how it works.

Källan, 2019, oil on canvas.
– Edward Burne-Jones always painted angels, demons and mermaids. I wanted to do it my way. His angels are like statues, but that’s not how I would decipit my angels. I thought: “If an orchestra of angels walked through the room, wouldn’t that be... Really nice?” And I think they would interact and talk with each other. So I painted them like that, and then I wanted to add water, so I made a woman finding water in a fountain. The woman by the fountainhead don’t know the angels are there, but she’s not alone. I often paint like there’s things going on somewhere in the work that you don’t know about or see. I feel like that sometimes. There’s a lot going on around you, behind you, but you look the wrong way. It can be a good thing, that you can remain within yourself when a lot of other things are happening. You do your things, your art, have your own thoughts and your own outlets; you let them come to you and you make sure to let them in. I think that’s what she is doing by the water, she’s deep inside of herself.

Preparation, 2017, bronze
– I see my daily life as moving through different phases, and in between them I change clothes. Before I go to work and start painting or doing an installation, I change clothes. I cannot not change clothes... It’s a symbolic act. You continuously change, and it shows that you have a lot of different people and identities within of you.

– It’s is about the separation in having another life during the night – a more allowing life. You reflect over the bigger questions, you think differently. You get answers during the night, and you realise things and suddenly you see solutions. Then the sun rises and the day comes, and you look at yourself and you change again: “I had it all wrong, it’s not like that at all!” You almost feel ashamed of who you were during the night . But then the night comes yet again, and you go back into your nocturnal logic… In that shift, the preparation is very important. I see the preparation as a portal.

Nattlogik, bronze, 2019, and the seven bronze beds currently at CFHILL: Kloker, Toker, Blyger, Trötter, Butter, Prosit, Glader, bronze, 2019.
– By doing these seven small beds, I’m tying together most of my most important works I’ve done since the nineties. Here, I’m realising that when I was growing up myself, I never saw myself in Snow White, I saw myself as one of The Seven Dwarfs. I can recognise myself in the feelings of abandonment. When you think about it, The Dwarf’s beds are glass coffins just as Snow White’s, they’re frozen in time. Now at Waldemarsudde, for my solo show Nocturnal Logic, I’ve done one big bronze bed that weighs 100kg, but it’s made to feel like it’s floating.

Glaskistan, 2019, oil on canvas.
– Snow White lies in a coffin made of glass, water and veils of time, just resting. It’s an intriguing state to be in, to say thank you and goodbye to the world for a little while. There’s actually a Tarot card like that, where, when the world is too much, you just lay down and pause and wait. You still have everything around you, while the world is quite hard. You’re frozen in time for a little while.  

– But really, this painting isn’t about Snow White. It’s about being locked inside a small house with seven men. How do you survive a situation like that?

How do you?
– In my mind, I shrink the men. I turn them into The Seven Dwarfs. I’ve experienced that, a lot of women have. You’re working in a group where you’re the only woman. The men are often much taller as well. You always have to look up at them. Then I thought: Who has managed this situation very well? Snow White.

Nocturnal Logic runs at Prince Eugen's Waldemarsudde until February 16, 2020.