Fredrik Roos Art Grant 2022: Judit Kristensen

About the exhibition

The Fredrik Roos Foundation awards Judit Kristensen the grant with the following motivation:

“Judit Kristensen’s paintings make it hard not to think of the pandemic we have all just lived through over the past two years. Yet her paintings are not permeated by the desperate loneliness that has defined the mood of these times. On the contrary, Judit Kristensen’s paintings are marked by a coolness that lends them an almost observational, analytical character. This is perhaps unsurprising given that, before her artistic training, Judit Kristensen studied to become a psychologist at Umeå University. Her near-clinical approach to these emotional states reveals a deep understanding of the human psyche.”

2022 marks the fifth year that the presentation and exhibition take place at Artipelag.

About the artist

Judit Kristensen recently completed her MFA at the Umeå Academy of Fine Arts. She lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium. Despite having only recently graduated, her work has already attracted considerable attention. Her recent solo exhibitions include Örnsköldsvik Art Gallery, Alta Art Space in Malmö, Galleri Syster in Luleå, and Galleria Centofiorini in Civitanova Marche. She has also taken part in numerous group exhibitions, including at Eighteen Gallery in Copenhagen, PLUS–ONE Gallery and Sofie Van de Velde Gallery’s Wunderwall in Antwerp, Golsa Gallery in Oslo, Diskus Gallery in Aalst, and Hole Gallery in New York. Kristensen has received grants from the Eva and Hugo Bergman Memorial Fund through the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts, KiK through Örnsköldsvik Museum and Art Gallery, SamArtBete from Galleri Syster, and Umeå Municipality’s travel and culture grant. Her work is held in several public collections, including those of Skellefteå Municipality, Luleå Municipality, and the Public Art Agency Sweden.

In Kristensen’s work, the viewer becomes a voyeur, watching emotionally charged scenes unfold in domestic settings and centered on everyday events. She tells of not leaving the apartment for two weeks and building up piles of cigarette butts as depression turns into boredom. The works invite the viewer into an interior world of dark and light fantasies, alongside an exterior world of Netflix, Coca-Cola bottles, bowls of Cheerios, and iPhones.

Although there appears to be an autobiographical dimension to Kristensen’s work, the scenes do not so much depict the artist’s surroundings as constitute staged scenarios designed to evoke a specific emotional atmosphere. This draws parallels to contemporary painters such as Salman Toor, Jill Mulleady, and Felix De Clercq, who also work with visual autofiction.