The exhibition of Ebba Strid Udikas’ paintings took place the 25th of October at Karlström & Karlström in the centre of the most historical island of Stockholm: Gamla Stan.
After ten years of portraits and two awards (Tyresö Cultural 2014 and Lions Trollbäcken 2013), Ebba has recently started a project entirely based on the study of plant forms, geometrical combination and, above all, nature.
When we asked her about the meaning of her paintings, she answered:
“I am very much involved in the problem and issues of the world, but sometimes I need to escape from such a reality and my paintings are the exact result of my spiritual identification in nature.”
Indeed Udikas demonstrates a strong interest in nature; most of her works are “flower arrangements” which seem to point to the immutability of nature compared to the transience of our lives. Year after year, in fact, problems such as global warming demonstrate our ability to ruin what we have.
Works such as Fröboll, Näckros or Omloppet are as similar as different; each work seems to depict a specific mood and we can only imagine Ebba who leaves her house and brings to life the product of that particular mood. She is also a great observer as visible in Japp, det är mina ägg, Over molnen and Och…?. These three paintings form a trypych, one relates to another but conceivable separately, and focuses on the life of birds, the less corrupt creatures of the earth.
In 1819, John Keats wrote Ode to a nightingale compared the singing of a bird to the darkness of humans heart
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs;
Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
John Keats and Ebba Strid Udikas are, and were, implicitly trying to spread a message, that of nature as real heritage given to men by Earth.
Article by Alessandro Leone
Photo supplied by Ebba Strid Udikas
