“Crazy tomtemamma with sweet lines”
“Nina Hemmingsson returning to Jenny nyström’s magical imagery – the christmas party for a cartoonist”
“This is a kulturartikel which is a part of Aftonbladet’s opinionsjournalistik.”
“Is it not a madness of Jenny Nyström? It is a friend to me who ask. She thought that the mother who plays the piano is on the verge of nervous breakdown. To the girl with the twinkling eyes, wears the head of the rooster as soon as you look away. I will be eager. I love the madness. Or I feel close to it. Anxiety, sadness, anger, longing out and the madness is it that kicks in once my creativity.”
“feeling trapped, in the form of the expectations, but usually in my own psyche, forcing me to subscribe, it is the only thing that helps. For a while in any case. Then everything begins, so to speak, again. So I get a little excited at the opportunity to discover the madness of tomtarnas mother. It would surely be a way into her world again, as an adult. For it was a good while since I even thought about her, much less looked at her pictures.”
“Now I have a reason to return. I visit Sven-Harrys art museum in Stockholm, showing a hundred works of Jenny Nyström (the exhibition runs until 17 February, and I highly recommend it). Here you get to see everything from oil paintings (I have not bothered me in the past), to a variety of book covers, postcards, and other illustrations.”
“nyström’s it never succeeded with their intentions to pursue doctoral studies and it was mainly she who supported the family through his illustrations. I understand that there are many who wish that she had continued to paint in oil, her paintings from her time at the academy of fine arts and later as a scholar in Paris, is amazing.”
“A self-portrait from 1884, I think, very much about, she looks so cool. Self-confident smile, steady gaze. Yet it is her drawings that still interests me the most. Partly because I myself am a cartoonist. But also because it was her illustrations that captivated me as a child. And god should know that her pictures needed when I grew up. I don’t know how many books I read, with extremely tedious illustrations that depicted real people and their real problems, problems that I have already, unfortunately, was familiar with. Despite their realism, they had like nothing to do with me.”
“in Addition, I felt like they expected something of me, but I never knew what. Jenny Nyström on the other hand, her imagery was for me to step into, I got it. She said, despite the fact that you are so far away, so of concern to the here you. It was alien and beautiful and at home at the same time. “
“I take pictures of her tomtebilder, Three singing tomtenissar, a watercolor from 1925. I zoom in until you can no longer see what it is (which is nice, I’m personally not fond of her gnomes, and these are unusually teasing). What is left is an abstract pattern. I look at the lines. I hate the flabby lines. Slack lines are ugly and the opposite of life and force.”
“If you are an accomplished artist, so the risk to be nifty, and wit, becomes easy in sagging and then you have to find the resistance in other ways. How then is a line that is not sagging? For example, it has a point where you see (feel) how it changes direction. And the point is not bortslarvad, here there has been something to force the line to a new direction. Maybe I am incomprehensible. It is enough to know that a good line with plyometrics feels good. A flaccid feels bad.”
“When I look at the enlarged picture, I see that Jenny nyström’s lines are incredibly good. I suspect that it is in the lines that much of her special expression is. I also believe that their rigor makes the images easier to take in. As the spoon with the sugar to bring down the the medicine in reverse. “
“anyway, I notice with some surprise that I am still welcome to stay in her imagery. It was like hell. Usually it is sufficient that I see a sanitized villaträdgård to feel easily claustrophobic. And what I draw is stuff that chafe so much that it is necessary to get it out on paper, where it is more manageable than inside in the body. Here I find nothing that will rub, or I’m looking not even, I just lands. “
“I am glad that the man she married is not drug money. Sorry, but I’ve also never been supported and I am grateful. I think it is good to suffer a little. Roll up your sleeves and find out yourself. And honestly, when we have rich men, so it is not obvious that we have more artistic freedom. In addition, (I do not expect agreement here) so I think to close the doors, I believe in restrictions. To squeeze in the large in the small, give weight. “
“Many of us are crazy, and what do I know, maybe Jenny Nyström. But she wanted to give, I think, is a part of the happiness that she herself experienced as a child, and it is no small gift. There are no ulterior motives. Nothing that needs to be decoded. Probably enjoy the woman playing the piano. It is oironiskt and generously. I get a little touched to be embraced for a while by the light, and notice that I like it. Even a madman may need to rest sometimes.”