Maria Nordin, b. 1980, Sweden

Maria Nordin, the winner of the Beckers Art Award (Sweden’s important art award for new artists) in 2011, using watercolor for her drawings as well as animation, maximizing the visual and sensual effects created by the water and pigments being absorbed by paper. The artist features characters in strange poses, intertwined and relying on one another. Nordin’s drawings quietly speak of her interest in the body and violence, using paper that wrinkles under the weight of water, almost like soaked human skin; meticulous brush touches; soft pink and Sienna hues.

The drawing animation series featured in this exhibition are based on her variation of scenes from Rainer Werner Fassbinder or Pedro Almodovar films, and their recreation into a unified animation video. For instance, <Two Seconds of Pain> is taken from a scene in Pedro Almódovar’s All about My Mother; the broadly smiling face of the character becomes mottled, and the audience see how the emotion of joy turns into pain. As similar but subtly differing drawings overlap, it becomes difficult for the viewers to discern the facial expressions – this imparts an uncanny feeling. A freeze shot of a suspending screen, drawings of these moments, animations where the same moment is varied in form – shared time is unpacked in different ways.

Selected Solo Exhibitions
2011　Acting Out,Teatergalleriet, Uppsala, Sweden
2010　Hide and Seek, Galleri Mejan, Stockholm, Sweden
2009　illa Galleriet, Göteborgs Konstförening, Sweden

Selected Group Exhibitions
2012　EORUM SANAI (Ice Man), Arario Gallery, Cheoan, Korea
2011　She's in the Picture, Centrum för fotografi, Stockholm, Sweden
　　　Today's Specials, Galleri Magnus Karlsson, Stockholm, Sweden
2010　Anna-Lisa Thomson stipendiater, Uppsala Konstmuseum, Sweden
2009　Vårsalongen, Liljevalchs Konsthall, Sweden