Andreas Eriksson

Hovering between abstraction and figuration, Andreas Eriksson's meditative works can be interpreted as patchwork topographies or details of organic forms such as trees, earth and rock formations.  As an art student, Eriksson was heavily preoccupied with 1970s paintings in general, and Willem de Kooning in particular. In 1996, while facing a canvas covered in thick, wet oil paint that he considered a failure, Eriksson found inspiration in a painting he had seen in New York the previous year: Willem de Kooning's '…Whose Name Was Writ in Water' (1975). The lyrical title of the painting is a reference to the epigraph on the tombstone of the poet John Keats (1795-1821) - 'Here lies one whose name was writ in water'. Eriksson thought he glimpsed the name 'Bill', short for Willem, in skewed and warped letters in de Kooning's abstract painting. Facing his own failed painting in Stockholm, Eriksson added his first name using bold brushstrokes in the wet paint. 'An-dre-as' is imprinted into the cloudy blue-green surface, like the shades of an algae-infested lake. In this way, 'Vars namn är skrivet i färg' captures historical references and whimsical tributes between artists, across disciplines, centuries and stages of their careers.