Ekman draws on familiar everyday settings and situations, transforming them into something uniquely her own. Through an experimental approach, she combines the absurd and the surreal with recognisable environments. Her visual world incorporates references to art history alongside elements of popular culture.

The auction painting, Stadens monument (Monuments of the City), is signed Marie-Louise De Geer Bergenstråhle, the name she used on all her works during the 1970s. This was an exceptionally productive period in her career, and the subject matter is characteristic of her work at the time. She explored the same idea of a street, with absurd views through windows, in her films Hallo Baby (1975) and Mamma, pappa, barn (1978), as well as in numerous paintings.

The sculptures lining the street are also highly characteristic of her work from the 1970s. With their absurdist anti-aesthetic, they playfully subvert established cultural conventions. Ekman refers to them as monuments, and they recur in many of her paintings. Around 1980, she began combining them with details inspired by existing works of art, including those by Olle Baertling and Pablo Picasso.

Here, Ekman elevates a few everyday figures to the status of heroes: the weary older woman struggling with heavy shopping bags and the young mother with a child nestled in the folds of her skirt. They are strategically positioned in front of a delicatessen window and a display of colourful dresses, enticing them with the promise of another kind of life – one filled with greater luxury, pleasure and celebration.