Linn Fernström
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"Det trasiga rummet"
Signed Linn Fernström and dated 2005 verso. Oil on canvas 170 x 240 cm.
Provenance
Galleri Lars Bohman, Stockholm.
Stockholms Auktionsverk, "Modern Art & Works of Art", 25 April 2008, lot 1199.
Private Collection, Sweden.
Literature
Galleri Lars Bohman, Stockholm, "Linn Fernström", 2005, illustrated full page p. 77.
More information
The auction's painting “Det trasiga rummet” is a powerful example of Linn Fernström’s ability to transform the everyday into something both beautiful and deeply unsettling. In the work, we encounter a familiar, almost idyllic interior space, but something feels off - as the title suggests, this is not a safe home, but a room where existence has quite literally and symbolically fallen apart.
The painting, which was exhibited in "Linn Fernström" at Galleri Lars Bohman in 2005, contains many of the recurring motifs from Fernström’s visual world: the child with severed arms, the tiger cub, the threads hanging from the sky, and not least the artist herself here depicted in a vividly pink armchair, lying with closed eyes and pens in hand.
It is a scene frozen in time, like a surreal still life, where we cannot tell whether the figures we observe are alive or dead. On the table in front of them lies a photograph, a memory of joy acting as a visual contrast to the quiet horror in the room.
Fernström uses the paradoxical as an artistic language. What at first appears bright, beautiful, and childlike - a tiger cub playing with threads, a soft sofa, a child’s gaze -gradually transforms into its opposite: absence, loss, a silent cry for help.
As Mårten Castenfors expressed in connection with the exhibition at Galleri Lars Bohman in 2005, Fernström acts as a “disruptive signal in everyday life.” She unsettles our habitual ways of seeing reality and compels us to confront what we would rather ignore.
It is this apparent simplicity combined with emotional complexity that makes “Det trasiga rummet” a key work in Fernström’s oeuvre. Here, many of her central themes are concentrated: bodily fragmentation, the recurring self-portrait, the interplay between childhood and loss, play and death.
Through her technical skill and her ability to combine drawing and painting into a dreamlike flow, Fernström transcends traditional figurative painting and leads us into a borderland - where time, memory, and identity merge.
Linn Fernström (born 1974 in Örebro) has, since her breakthrough at Galleri Mejan in 1999, established herself as one of Sweden’s most significant contemporary artists. She is educated at the Royal Institute of Art, and her works are included in several of Sweden’s major art collections, such as Moderna Museet and Malmö Konstmuseum.
Artist
Linn Fernström is a Swedish artist born in Örebro in 1974. She studied at the Idun Lovén Art School and continued her education at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm between 1995 and 2000. In 1999, Fernström held her first solo exhibition at Galleri Mejan, which marked the beginning of a successful career that included several major solo shows, such as Liljevalchs in Stockholm.
Fernström's paintings often feature a bright background combined with strong, vivid colors. Her subjects revolve around people and animals, spanning between idyllic and nightmarish, playful and serious themes. With light brushstrokes and an airy composition, Fernström addresses themes such as death and love. It's challenging to discern whether the figures are flying or falling as she experiments, plays, and moves objects around; birds, injured bodies, monkeys, balloons, and plants. Her style often embodies realism with nods to classical painting infused with elements of symbolism and surrealism. Her paintings can be monumental in size, and Fernström enjoys depicting herself. Her renowned works have fetched high prices at art auctions during the 2000s, such as ' De tre kvinnorna,' 'Ballongerna', and the self-portrait 'Bortbytingen'.
Linn Fernström's works are represented in collections such as the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Malmö Art Museum, and Linköping Art Museum.