A Fool´s Day

Nygårds Karin Bengtssonhas drawn attention for her paintinglike and staged photographs of human beings in austere, almost bare rooms and desolate landscapes. Her concern is life’s gradual transition from actuality to memory: What remain of all the ones that we have met, of all the places we have visited and all the stories we have amassed? Melancholia is something she continuously investigates in her works of art and she finds a lot of her inspiration in Nordic painting from the turn of the 19th century and especially from Munch, Hammershøi and Simberg.
A Fool’s Dayis the first solo exhibition of Nygårds Karin Bengtssonat Gallery Thomas Wallner. Her shades and tones are darker and more melancholic than beforeas they reflect the dire state of the world of today. Some of her pictures have a fool or a harlequin or a dunce as characters. A harlequin is expected to be without sorrows but the one in the picture by Nygårds Karin Bengtsson,that gives the title to the whole exhibition,stands in the middle of a lake deep in the forest with water to his waist. He contemplates his own reflection like Narcissus but with the difference that he doesn’t seem to be particularly fond of himself.
A girl is sitting on a desk in what seems to be her finest dress. A letter is lying next to her. Is it a letter of farewell? A woman is sitting in the forest with a dead robin in her hand. A young boy dressed in black is kneeling in front of a box that looks more like a small coffin than anything else. The story of how the opening of Pandora’s Boxliberates the evils to fly all over the world is brought to one’s mind. This is what is happening today. It is a time of sheer madness. It is A Fool’s Day.
B.Weiß

Nygårds Karin Bengtssonwas born 1972 in Mora, Dalacarlia, Sweden but at presentshe lives and works in the vicinity of Höganäs in Scania. She studied at the University of Art and Design (today Aalto University) in Helsinki, Finland where she completed her MFA in 2003. Since then she has had numerous solo exhibitions, e.g. at the Art Museums of the cities of Eskilstuna and Alingsås, at Gallery Ping Pong in Malmö and Gallery Domeij in Sthlm. Her -to date – largest exhibition “Untold Stories” was on display during the autumn of 2015 at Fotografiska in Stockholm. The exhibition attracted a lot of interest with reviews and interviews in e.g. Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Sveriges Radio and SVT Stockholm. Nygårds Karin Bengtsson has received numerous grants as well as awards, including Stockholm stads Kulturstipendium2011, Juryns Val (The Choice of the Jury) for the best work of art at Liljevalchs Vårsalong 2010 and VinUnicsKonststipendium2006. She is represented at e.g. Malmö Konstmuseum, Stockholm Konst and Statens Konstråd.
www.nygardskarinbengtsson.com