Katarina Andersson, SE

Katarina Andersson (b. 1960), lives and works in Gothenburg, Sweden. Near the Distant – is the title of one of Katarina Andersson’s abstract paintings.

Paradoxically, this title can be seen as descriptive: it describes the feeling you get when you stand before her works, it describes the evasive presence, the relationship between viewer and canvas. The shifting colour fields sit next to one another, the meticulously-applied, sheer layers of egg tempera evoke an infinite space, although the paintings are completely flat and do not give any indication that the paint has any palpable materiality (…).

Katarina Andersson has worked consistently since the early 1990s on creating spatiality solely with colour; she has steadily reduced her style until every separate part is infused with meaning. This stringency is characteristic of her entire practice and imbues all her works with the same deliberate intention. When this concentration meets the absence of an exact motif, it engenders a dynamic and a power that is forever fascinating

Excerpt from text by Martin Sundberg, 2020