Lovisa Ringborg – Summer Seeds

We are pleased to present Summer Seeds, featuring a selection of new works by Lovisa Ringborg, also included in her acclaimed solo exhibition Blindgångare at Norrtälje Konsthall (on view to 20 September).

In Ringborg’s silver gelatin photographs—and in those using an infrared filter—we encounter an intimate and enclosed world where external and internal realities merge. Much has been said about Ringborg’s art in terms of her photographs’ ability to reflect an inner landscape, mirroring the subconscious mind. She has indeed developed a visual language uniquely her own.

A door becomes a portal into an unknown darkness. The work Moonshine, which refers both to the moon and to moonshine (illicit spirits), alludes to transformation and to entering altered states. The figurine has collapsed, and the summer flowers on the windowsill have withered, shedding their seeds for the next season. Something has ended, and something else is beginning. The Vanitas motif recurs, but in a personal interpretation that evokes the child’s experience of their immediate surroundings—where the contrasts between darkness and light are ever-present.

Over the years, the painterly quality of Lovisa Ringborg’s work has become even more pronounced. It is tempting to compare her new still lifes and interiors to 17th-century Dutch painting—the Northern European tradition that, at the time, was more concerned with the description of the world than with the rhetorical persuasion of the Italian Baroque. Possessing a sharp eye for detail and a gift for striking composition, Ringborg gently guides the viewer toward a heightened state of awareness. The seemingly mundane elements in her work acquire meanings that—whether we recognize it or not—are deeply indebted to art history. At the same time, Lovisa Ringborg achieves a delicate balance between an underlying sense of unease and quiet wonder.

Reviews for Blindgångare at Norrtälje konsthall:

‘Återkommande är även upplevelsen av ett mellanrum; utrymmet mellan det öppna och slutna, det kända och okända. Som hennes foton av interiörer, till ytan alldagliga och hemtama rum, men som därtill rymmer skeva och dolda dimensioner.’ Sofia Edgren, Dagens Nyheter

‘Det är en bildvärld som tränger sig på, ur förborgade rum såväl inom oss som från världen utanför. Likt en blindgångare som exploderar kan den väcka oss när som helst ur slumrandets sköna ro. Ringborgs installationer må vara drömlika, men de är allt annat än sövande.’ Otto Ruin, Svenska Dagbladet

‘…visas en rad foton som har mycket av vanitas-stilleben över sig, av skörhet… I alla finns en stillhet och en tomhet, ibland med en inramning; en perfekt oval eller ett öga i en cirkel.’ Eva Asp, Konsten

Lovisa Ringborg (b. 1979 in Linköping) holds an MFA from the School of Photography at Gothenburg University. Ringborg's works have been presented at Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Norrtälje konsthall, Fotografiska Stockholm, Norrköping Art Museum, Varbergs Konsthall, Skellefteå Konsthall, Alma Löv Museum, Vänersborgs Konsthall, Gotlands Museum, Hasselblad Center, Bonniers Konsthall, Sven Harrys Konstmuseum, Stockholm, Passagen/Linköpings Konsthall, Kulturhuset, Stockholm, as well as in exhibitions in Finland, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France, USA and South Korea. She was awarded the San Michele Scholarship from Hasselblad Foundation and the Edstrandska Foundation Scholarship in 2012, the Victor Scholarship from the Hasselblad Foundation in 2010. Ringborg is represented in the collections of Moderna Museet, Norrköping Art Museum, Borås Art Museum, Hasselblad Foundation, Fries Museum, Leeuwarden, Holland, Skellefteå Konsthall, Alma Löv Museum of Unexp. Art, the Public Art Agency Sweden, Region Stockholm, Stockholm konst and Public Art Agency Sweden, as well as in various private collections in Sweden, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, USA and South Korea.