CO Hultén occupies a unique position in Swedish post-war art. As a co-founder of Imaginisterna in 1945 and a participant in the international CoBrA movement, he developed an artistic language at an early stage in which spontaneity, imagination and transformation were central. Over the course of his long career, he moved effortlessly between painting, printmaking, collage and experimental techniques, always remaining open to the unexpected.

During the 1990s, Hultén’s painting acquired a renewed intensity. He returned to the spontaneous and informal expression of his early years, while earlier motifs and experiences were woven into new contexts. Organic landscapes meet unfamiliar structures, black openings, splashes and overpainting. The works seem to balance between nature and dream, beauty and unease, the recognisable and the enigmatic.