Astrid Kajsa Nylander b. 1989

Overview

Astrid Kajsa Nylander was born in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden.

Nylander graduated with an MFA from Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg in 2018. Working across performance and installation, her practice explores painting in an expanded field. In compositions of everyday objects such as windows, buttons, and instruments, a personal microcosm is reflected in a global macrocosm, where objects’ different states mesh with the process of painting. In her ongoing series minijobs Nylander connects the textile qualities of the canvas with technologies such as sewing and weaving. The button is the starting point, ordinary and functional, yet a technical miracle that attaches one part to another, holding them together. Her methods reference Op Art painting’s questioning of perspective, which aimed to transcend "good taste" in favor of accessibility through playful colors and strong contrasts that communicate directly with the viewer through processes in the eye that we are normally unaware of.

Recent exhibitions include OTP Copenhagen and Ekerö Kulturhus (2025), NSFW/Svivlova (2022), Belenius (2022), and Page NYC (2020). In 2019, Nylander received the Stiftung Sparkasse Siegen Prize for Junge Kunst, followed by a solo presentation at Kunstverein Siegen. In 2023, Nylander curated and exhibited a group exhibition draw a door in the wall and slip through it at Belenius, alongside friends and former classmates Frieda Toranzo Jaeger, Beatrice Marchi, and Tanja Nis-Hansen. Nylander is currently working on the performance project What's a Mob to a King? (Plot-Twist Redemption) with Berlin-based artist Liina Magnea. The project premiered at Sophiensaele in Berlin and will travel to Moderna Dansteatern in Stockholm in 2027.

Nylander is represented in the collections of Moderna Museet, Mannheimer Swartling, Stockholm Konst, Ersta Diakoni, Region Västra Götaland, Region Sörmland, Region Skåne, Jönköpings kommun and Örebro kommun, among other municipal and private collections.

Button by button by button, role playing. A childhood memory of grandmother’s colour-sorted button collection. Thread in, thread out, thread through and tie a knot on the thread. Astrid Kajsa Nylander indulge in the joy of colour and experiments with reality. Her minijobs are hyper-realistic, decorative and colourful, but have an underlying daunting tone. They form intricate patterns where they are fixed on the wall, and the threads over the surface of the paintings are braided together like something akin to runic writing. She lays them out in irregular patterns composing new formations. They bounce off their wall-hung seats and look for each other. They are fascinating geometric figures reminiscent of pop art, and yet something completely different. They are of a world of their own.

– Lena Holger

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Installation shots