Gallery 01:19

A GUIDE TO THE EARTHIn the paintings of both Evert Lundquist and Erland Cullberg, colour takes centre stage. In Lundquist’s work, many motifs are rooted in memories, where the objects and figures depicted appear to be both solid and on the verge of dissolving. The oil paint is applied in layers, at times so thick that several of the paintings resemble reliefs. Between 1960 and 1970, Evert Lundquist served as a professor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm and, through his teaching, came to exert a significant influence on a younger generation of artists, including Erland Cullberg.Cullberg’s paintings also emerged through layers of paint and repeated revisions, as he worked on the same canvas again and again. In his paintings, the lyrical and archetypal meet the expressive and the dark. The artist himself has described his process: “If you look at me and my paintings, it is as though I am trying to bring forth a kind of rock-hard, spiritual essence in colour, which sometimes, just sometimes can burst and turn into song.”The dialogue between the paintings of these two artists and their approach to emphasising the material power of colour, forms one of the starting points for this gallery. Here, we also explore how other artists depict the relationship between body and space, and inner and outer reality – where the boundaries at times seem to merge, shift or dissolve.