Image : Group portrait in forest, 2011 © Helena Blomqvist
Angelika Knäpper Gallery Tegnérgatan 4, 113 58 Stockholm Suède
The Elephant Girl.
‘You’re what?, a rabbit asked a stranger at midnight’s hour.
‘Why, I’m the ghost of the sorrowful girl’, the stranger replied, ‘and never did I suppose that rabbits could talk.’
‘They can’t’, the rabbit replied ‘I too am a ghost. A ghost from the mind of that sorrowful girl.’
An abandoned summerhouse from a time long gone. Children’s spirits are drifting in the surroundings, sort of wandering back and forth. They have each other for company, and their friends stepped out of the world of fantasy. The images develop sensations of events taking place a long time ago.
Underneath the apple tree they line up for a group portrait. A girl is lying in bed in a room with an old ivy taking over the floor and the walls.
In Helena Blomqvist’s fourth solo show with Angelika Knäpper Gallery it’s about death, friendship, transient and the relentless march of time. These images carry resemblance to the work of photographers such as Julia Margaret Cameron, as well as the aesthetics of the Pre-Raphaelites. They also refer back to Beatrix Potter stories and the film Gray Gardens. A catalogue will be published in connection with the exhibition. It will also come in a special edition.
Image : Group portrait in forest, 2011 © Helena Blomqvist