Martin Wickström's art lies at the intersection of the past and the present, the private and the collective. With a style that is closely linked to photography or film in its tight cropping and frequent combinations of close-ups and wide shots, he manages to capture entire scenes in his still images. Wickström is an artist who, in the postmodernist tradition, boldly borrows from and draws inspiration from popular culture and advertising. He combines this with Americana, pop art and photorealism. He bases his paintings on documentary photographs, his own image bank, everyday objects, digital experiments and emotional memories. He reveals the beauty in everyday architecture and form.
Wickström's popular paintings of building facades around the world capture the interplay of sunlight and shadow, from the suburbs of the Swedish suburbs to big cities like New York. The colours are always vibrant, the cropping precise and the painting flawless. The afternoon light is both dreamlike and melancholic, meticulously rendered with shadows, sunspots and reflections in empty windows. There are no people included. Wickström leaves it up to the viewer to imagine the worlds hidden behind the façades. What human stories and destinies unfold behind the walls? Beneath the seemingly flawless surface, however, lurk abysses, and the motifs are often deeply personal yet also socially analytical.