Mamma Andersson: Memory Banks

Edited with text by Kevin Moore

Painters often draw from existing visual materials, such as photographs and reproductions of past works of art, to inspire and construct their work. Swedish artist Mamma Andersson (born 1962)—known for her dreamlike, faintly narrative compositions inspired by Nordic painting, folk art and cinema—is no exception.

But Andersson takes this process a step or two further, importing images of stacks of books and stray photographs, clipped from various sources, directly into her painted compositions. With careful observation, Andersson's dreamy landscapes and interiors slowly come to reveal common imagery and accumulated biblio-ephemera filtered through, and sharing space with, the artist's muted palette, melancholic scenery and textural paint. Mamma Andersson: Memory Banks focuses on this aspect of Andersson's painting practice, exploring how her use of appropriation and collage charges her paintings with an eerie, uncanny sense of familiarity.