Idun Baltzersen and Peter Tillberg

Dialogue on Drawing
27 maj - 16 augusti 2017



Idun Baltzersen works with drawings and prints on a large scale. Young women – heroines and martyrs, clad in hoodies and Converse sneakers – are scraped in and drawn. In this exhibition, her imagery engages in a dialogue with Peter Tillberg's charcoal drawing Vampire Attack from the Uppsala Art Museum's collection. In the spot, the round shape, Tillberg offers the material and the haphazard a role in creating the motif – movement, direction and texture emerges in the depiction process. This becomes a starting point for a drawing encounter spanning the generations, a stage design in charcoal, prints and ink, with the impact and blackness spreading organically throughout the room.

Typical of Idun Baltzersen are the large woodcuts printed on fabric or paper and combined in collages. The wooden relief, the actual printing material itself, is also featured in the installations. The format, the sheer multitude, and physically demanding craft creates a special dynamics together with the artist's pictorial world that succinctly lifts forth young women and their mental spaces. Idun Baltzersen, born in Trondheim, Norway in 1987, lives and works in Stockholm and received her masters in 2014 at the Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm.  

Peter Tillberg (1946–2016) worked as a painter, drawer, sculptor and stage designer. He received his education at The Royal Institute of Fine Art in Stockholm from 1964-69. Through his photorealistic painting with surreal elements and not least his painting Blir du lönsam lille vän? (Will You be Profitable, Little Friend?) from 1971-72, Tillberg gained International recognition. The motif represented a newly emerging social critique typical of the era. During the 1980s, Tillberg developed a more abstract imagery. He described how he sought “the silent room” and how he was interested in objects – furniture or stones – in a metaphysical sense. 

Peter Tillberg lived in Stockholm as well as in Nimes, France. The artist is represented at, among other places, Moderna Museet, Nationalmuseum and Ateneum in Helsinki. In 1990, he became a board member of the Royal Academy of Art in Stockholm.