Lars Hellstrom

Södra Valsätra – my home community and other works
24 May – 19 August 2018

The artist Lars Hellström (b. 1936) was born and raised in Uppsala, and now lives and works on the island of Gotland. The images in Hellström's exhibition are indicative of his passion for the printing process of lithography, that emerged early on while he was a student at the Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design from 1955 to 1961. Besides specialising in art prints, he is also a painter and works with public art commissions.

During the 1940s and '50s, the artistic influences stemmed mainly from the United States, with specifically New York as the cultural epicentre of the world. In the 1960s, Lars Hellström could relate to the “abstract expressionism movement” or more specifically to the so-called New York School – an informal group of musicians, poets and artists who worked with free forms, colours and movements, such as Jackson Pollock and his “action painting”. The painter Barnett Newman, whom Hellström especially admired, was also part of the group.

Lars Hellström's early works from the 1960s were abstract, after which he transitioned over to a more detailed, figurative imagery. Typical of this period is his series, “Södra Valsätra – my home community”, that consists of a total of seven lithographs. Hellström and his family had moved in the 1970s from central Uppsala to the newly built suburb of Valsätra/Gottsunda. It was the stereotypical design of the so-called “Million Program” buildings that inspired the Valsätra series.

Following a period of “real landscape images”, that is, close-up studies and naturalistic depictions of the various patterns and rock types of the Stockholm archipelago cliffs, Lars Hellström returned once again to non-figurative motifs. He now worked mainly with variations on recurring themes and interplays of angles, lines and directions.