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Biography

Ernst Billgren - Artists - galerieforsblom.com

Photo: Per-Erik Adamsson

Born in Stockholm 1957 I Lives and works in Stockholm.

 

Ernst Billgren’s art was described as obstinate early on. This assessment revealed a contradiction in relation to Billgren's intention: to create ordinary art, anchored in scattered reproductions featuring familiar motifs deriving from art history’s landscape painting, animal depictions, and religious elements. As we contemplate his oeuvre we are led as viewers into remarkable imagery where outlandish scenes are played out, often in the salons of the eighteenth century upper-class or the bourgeois homes of the 1950s. A group of ducks may be having a conversation, carefully arranged on art deco furniture, or a bear, wearing an Elizabethan jacket, may pass through a room with empire bureaus and Stockholmsarbeten (Stockholm Works) furniture. Over time, however, the contradiction of intent and analysis was reduced to the elusive and transient, which emerged as the artist's hallmark. Billgren challenges the notion of a distinction between good taste and bad, between art and the decorative arts. His work involves a cross-genre practice that moves from painting and text to sculpture and glass. 

 

Ernst Billgren studied at the Valand Academy—University of Gothenburg and at Birkagården, Stockholm. He has been a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Stockholm, since 1997. He has had numerous solo shows in Sweden and internationally. His works are included in numerous collections, such as Moderna Museet, Stockholm; the Contemporary Museum of Art Kiasma, Helsinki; and Malmö Konsthall.

 

 

 

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