Elina Eriksson
Så ock på jorden
05.04—04.05.24

Gallery Steinsland Berliner is pleased to present Så ock på jorden, an exhibition by Swedish artist Elina Eriksson. This is the artist’s debut solo exhibition following her graduation from The Royal Institute of Art in 2022. Så ock på jorden is comprised of paintings on canvas and paper that congregate in a jubilant outpouring of colour and earnest sentiment.

Elina Eriksson’s visual stylings exist in the space between intuitive abstraction and descriptive familiarity. Swift and supple strokes of prismatic colour flow across the surfaces, like driven forward by the wind or other elemental forces, assembling as invigorative visions of life itself. Eriksson approaches the world around her using art as a tool for interpretation, thus her motifs vary in accordance with setting and subject, but pervasive is a sensory and spiritual connectedness between the carnal, the natural and the ethereal. Eriksson’s paintings convey an esoteric ambiguity that correlates the flow of windswept nature with the veins spindling through our bodies, suggesting that there exists a common plane of understanding for all that is living.

“Så som i himmelen, så ock på jorden” (Transl: “As in heaven, So on earth”) as a prayer imagines not only the possibility of heaven on earth but also that a surrendering to divine guidance will bring upon it. The exhibition’s two large-scale paintings function collectively as a portrait of the artist and her own immediate family. Perhaps a personal allegory for the sacredness which an earthly life can offer. Other more abstract works rely on the artist’s own focused flow states, not unlike different forms of meditative drawing connected to spiritual tradition. Eriksson’s practice celebrates the enlightenment gained from an intuitive approach to life and art.

Elina Eriksson (b. 1984) lives and works in Stockholm. She received her BFA and MFA from The Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. Eriksson works with painting, installation and sculpture.