Contemporary Art & Design Presents Lena Cronqvist

Bukowskis presents the work "Vilken hand?" by Lena Cronqvist at this autumn's live auction, Contemporary Art & Design – The largest live auction for contemporary art and design in the Nordics.

In a period when many artists were breaking away from traditional representation—driven above all by the American currents of Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art—Lena Cronqvist chose a different path. She remained committed to figuration and to a deeply personal subject matter, an approach she has sustained throughout her career.

Her hallmark style consists of full-length depictions of children, most often young girls, whose seemingly playful scenes conceal unsettling, sometimes grotesque undertones. In numerous works the children interact with dolls that serve as stand-ins for their parents. At times these appear in innocent, dollhouse-like role reversals that destabilize familial hierarchies; in other instances, the dolls are subjected to violent or sexually charged acts. These images confront the anxieties and struggles of growing up—concerns that later re-emerge in Cronqvist’s self-portraits as an older woman, where the tension shifts from childhood to the realities of aging. The dynamic has reversed: now it is the girls who resemble dolls, subject to her control in gestures marked by both urgency and release.