Drip Drop: Astrid Kajsa Nylander

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.

One can understand that the kaleidoscopic flowers of the American artist Judy Chicago have inspired Nylander. And just like the flowers of Georgia O’Keeffe, also American, the size and magnification of everyday small things has become important to Nylander. It may not just be a coincidence that the new paintings, those of the roses, now require space. Extensive space next to the buttons. Intrusively large. The roses turn their outcast, enlarged faces straight onto the viewer. For us humans the meaning of the rose is associated with love, gratitude and friendship. In literature, the rose has a given place. The most famous literary rose quote is “A rose is a rose is a rose” which Gertrude Stein states in her poem Sacred Emily in 1913, an explanation that everything is just the way it is. To me, Nylander’s roses belong to the same wave of thought. They are what they are, even if they are absurd. They are seductive and stylized, peculiarly vibrant and far from the stiff marzipan flower of the common birthday cake. It shines with obvious love, an individually coloured rose for each and every one of us.