Kristina Jansson

You the spectator sees a room, but is it an imaginary or a real room? You stand still by yourself and look at another world. What kind of place is this? Is there anyone living here and if so, who? The setting may seem familiar to you in a distant way but is still foreign. There are traces of people here. You may perceive or catch a glimpse of them, but they are not the main subject. Perhaps there are also traces of other creatures or animals here. The room also contains further items such as furniture and other furnishings, maybe technical equipment and tools. 

Kristina Jansson (b. 1967) is one of Sweden’s most interesting contemporary artists. Värmlands Museum is proud to present this large exhibition that has emerged in close dialogue with the artist, with focus on spaces. It shows works from the last fifteen years, many are new and have never been shown publicly before. 

Kristina Jansson’s images are ambiguous and constantly explore the boundary between the reality we have in front of us and the one we are not in physically. The exploratory attitude draws motifs from fiction or from mass-produced images that belong to our common popular cultural flow. What Kristina Jansson calls ”a kind of visual jet stream”. They touch on existential and philosophical issues, challenge our perception and make us see things anew. 

The compositions are complex, often in large scale and made up of many different layers, many layers of color. They are opulent paintings that comes to life with the color – with the material itself, whether it is painted thin or impasto. Sometimes the paintings are made as pairs or as reflections of each other where small displacements and changes puzzles our memory. Didn’t I see this picture just now? 

Kristina Jansson lives and works in Stockholm. The artist was born in Väse in Värmland and is educated at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, École nationale supérieur des Beaux-art in Paris and graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 2001. She has had several solo exhibitions, but also participated in group exhibitions in both Sweden and the USA. Kristina Jansson is a member of the Academy of Fine Arts since 2014 and professor of painting at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts since 2020. 

Soft Drama, 2020 – oil on canvas, 127 x 187,5 cm.