About
Adam Ytterberg
Torun & Farmor i Naturminne
We are excited to present Adam Ytterberg’s debut exhibition Torun & Farmor i Naturminne. Currently completing his MFA at Konstfack, he stands out as one of the most distinctive emerging painters in Sweden today.
This series of 10 paintings is the result of a long labour. Ytterberg truly is a slow painter, carefully paying attention to every last detail before deciding a work is finished. He has demonstrated a particular talent for his chosen medium of oil painting, depicting depth and light with a sensibility that parallels many of the great modern painters, including Anders Zorn and Jenny Nyström.
Looking at Ytterberg’s works, one is equally amazed by his extraordinary technical skill as his impressive narrative and world-building. Anthropomorphic creatures borrow elements from the cartoons that he read as a child and teenager. The characters are rendered in a naturalistic manner, mixing the vividness of Bruno Liljefors’s animal scenes with the whimsiness of Donald Duck. On the narrative side, one can draw a parallel to Tove Jansson’s use of the Moomin world to address and cope with the psychological effects of war, counterbalancing the sense of impending doom with a hopeful ending. Ytterberg’s motifs have a similar effect. In a context of Anthropocene mass extinction and extreme weather, he proposes a strong argument for re-enchantment of the world and tuning into the intelligence of nature.
