Amanda Trygg (SE) |
Curator: Maja Gade and Richard Krantz.
In the exhibition oooh, that’s sooo nice! Amanda Trygg explores aspects of a feminine stereotype. Aesthetics of immaturity, cuteness and naivety are central. What does it mean to inhabit it and what does it mean to adopt it? Can a state of submission be a way to gain control?
Suspended from the gallery ceiling are head-sized plaster sculptures in alternating shades of pink and gray. Big soft folds with imprints of hearts and shapes reminiscent of fists - that are actually gift bows. Each bearing phrases like “Your opinion is better than mine” , “Look at your face when I agree with you, you look so happy and confident.”
Smaller yet similar reliefs cover a painting, all speaking in the same tongue; Hearts that please, flowers that agree and giggling ribbons.
“Treating painting as a doll” is another phrase that pops up. Art journalist Jens Asthoff writes:“Treating painting as a doll” is such a characteristic figure of speech for Trygg. It’s a phrase that sticks into your mind and links to her work. Treating a painting as a doll? It is a rather disconcerting thought at first. The cute, the sweet is not necessarily at home in the art context; at most it may be accepted with an ironic tone. But Trygg is not concerned with irony, by any means; she explicitly opens up a kind of cuteness discourse with her world of motives - which also includes projections onto femininity.”
Statements, emotions and verbs are linked with symbols, colors and shapes. The exhibition is installed in a way that is reminiscent of a mind map, something for the viewer to keep in mind to orient themselves in the exhibition.
Amanda Trygg b. 1990, Stockholm. oooh, that's sooo nice! is Amanda's first solo exhibition in Sweden. She graduated with a Master from Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg 2019, after her Bachelor at Trondheim Academy of fine arts 2017. Following graduation she has been active in the Hamburg art-scene, showing and organizing group exhibitions. In 2021 she compiled and released a catalog with works spanning from 2018 to 2021 including a text on Amanda and her works, by Jens Asthoff. In 2022 her works will be shown in Malmö, Hamburg and Leipzig.
Photo: Johan Lundin