Elisabeth Östin, SE

Elisabeth Östin is drawn to the fantastic and the abominable. Her recent paintings resemble close-ups of strange vessels, nerve fibers, thorns, or stems.

Östin often describes her work as hybrids or ongoing transformations, with titles that feature impossible anatomies or transformations, such as “The Heart in the Wall,” “The Pharynx of the Trunk,” or “The Shadow’s Tongue.”

For Elisabeth Östin, painting is like trying to show something that keeps slipping out of her hands. She frequently returns to a line from the poem Picnic by Emily Berry: “Watching the sea is like watching something in pieces continually striving to be whole. Imagine trying to pick up a piece of the sea and show it to a person.” Östin is fascinated by the gap that exists between spoken language and painterly language, which makes it impossible to speak directly about what the images are. The facts are and remain secrets.

Elisabeth Östin (b. 1989, Viken) is a Swedish artist who lives and works in Arrie. She received her MA from Malmö Art Academy in 2019. Solo shows include The Mute Source, Galleri Arnstedt, Östra Karup (upcoming 2025); Trabeculae, Pumphuset Konsthall, Landskrona, Sweden (2023); The Mocking Gap, KHM2 (2019); To Live in Such a Place, Galleri Thomas Wallner (2017). Östin has participated in duo- and group shows at Ravinen, Norrviken, Sweden; Public Support, Vestfossen, Norway; Galleri Arnstedt, Östra Karup, Sweden; Galleri Rostrum, Malmö, Sweden; Digitaliseum, Malmö Sweden, Galleri Thomas Wallner, Simris, Sweden; Pumphuset Konsthall, Landskrona, Sweden.

Her work is represented in public collections at The Royal College of Music in Stockholm, Malmö Art Museum, The Public Art Agency of Sweden and Uppsala municipality. In 2020 and 2022 Östin received work scholarships from The Swedish Arts Grants Committee. In 2024 Östin received The Edstrand Foundation Scholarship which includes a group exhibition at Malmö Art Academy Gallery.