Annika Vilhelmson Born 1979 in Göteborg Artistic education 2003

Annika Vilhelmson
Born 1979 in Göteborg
Artistic education
2003- Kungl. Konsthögskolan, Stockholm
Royal University College of Fine Art
2000-2003 Göteborgs Konstskola, Göteborg
1999-2000 KV Konstskola, Göteborg
Grants
2007 2006 2002
Sigrid Fridman’s foundation
Stellan, Sten and Märta Hähnel’s memorial foundation
Eric Ericson’s foundation
Exhibitions
2007
2007
2006 Master’s exhibition, Galleri Mejan, Stockholm
Mimers hus, Kungälv (as part of the Eric Ericson grant)
Ytspänning/Surface tension, exhibition in the city canale, Göteborg
Out of control
Repetitive structures and patterns are frequent in my work. These are forms
associated with order and perfection, but I use them rather to achieve the opposite.The less complex a pattern, the more impressive even the slightest deviation. This is why most of my works are the result of a timeconsuming working process, where I turn one material into something new, which in turn becomes part of
an installation. For example, using a needle to scratch lines into paper, enough to cover the walls of a room
of average size, or folding 3500 sheets of copy-paper into boxes to play around with for months. Working by
hand, rather than using any device to speed things up (which is often suggested to me), I get the level of control I want over the work in progress – and - equally important - an element of non-control. The ruler slips,
a shiver of my hand - and the line is no longer straight. One tiny deviation after an other adds up throughout
the work.
It may seem easy enough to avoid straight lines, but I’m not interested in deliberate disorder. As far as possible, I want the irregularities to be caused by my minor mistakes.
Inside space
Since all my work deal with some kind of existential reflections, working with rooms and spaces comes
quite natural, as they are fundamental elements in our experience of the world.
In my installations I add modifications to the existing room, or try to create new ones. Visually, these interventions may be less obvious, but they are usually the result of the extensive working process described
above.
Things unheard of
Early on in my planning for the Spring Exhibition I decided to create a work that would deal with rooms or
places in a less concrete way. I decided to go for a representation of an abstract place. The original idea was,
in other words, to make a map. In a wider sense, that’s also what it became.
Untitled
2003-2004
3500 paper boxes, 7 x 7 x 7 cm
Untitled, 2004-2005
3,6 x 4,6 m, varying height 2-6 cm
Thousands of pieces of white cardboard, cut by hand and put together
with glue gun, to form a grid covering the floor.
Untitled, 2005-2006
Paper, scratched by a needle
Lengths of paper are streched between the balcony and the floor, dividing the
room into one bigger and one small, closed part. Light filters through where the
needle has pierced the paper.
Inverted islands, 2006
Plastic buckets (Ø 70 cm), sand, water, spraypaint
Ta plats / Äga rum Taking place, 2006
3,5 x 3,5 m
Transparent plastic film on a concrete floor
Still life, 2007
2,7 x 3,6
Painted mdf-board, dust
A room of its own, 2007
3,5 x 5 x 2,6 m
White and black wall paint, wood
A room of its own
Details
The installation “A room of its own” was shown at my Master’s exhibition at Galleri Mejan in
November 2007.
In the existing gallery space I built a smaller room , with white walls and white floor. A framework of wooden joists carried the walls. At a quick glance, the walls appeared to be nothing but
regular walls, built of plaster and then rolled with white paint. Those who gave it some more time
of reflection did however soon discover details that were contradictory to that first impression. A
pleat or a hole in the wall revealed that what seemed to be a stable wall wasn’t thicker than a few
millimetres. The walls consisted of three layers of wall paint only - one white, one black and another white one - that I had painted onto sheets of plastic . And once the paint was dry, the plastic
was removed, and the lengths of paint were glued to the framework.
Drawings, 2005
A4
Pencil on transparent paper
Ink on squared paper (10 squares/cm)
Drawings, 2005
A4
Ink on squared paper (10 squares/cm)