CONTEMPORARY ART STOCKROOM Agneta Ekholm

An elegant, organic flow inhabits Agneta Ekholm’s immersive paintings. Characterised by a form of spontaneous, evolving abstraction honed over the the artists career, her gracefully layered compositions evoke the ebb and flow of nature - suggesting the movement of water, the play of light, or the translucence of glass. Each painting evolves directly on the canvas without the aid of preparatory drawings. This spontaneous process of building up and erasing layers of pigment results in delicate veils of colour that pulse with depth and vitality.

Integrating the aesthetic qualities of both minimalism and hard-edge painting, expressed with a gentle countenance, her visual language sits comfortably within the global history of abstract painting. Infused with an awareness of the trace — the physical act of painting — as well as the emotional charge embedded within it, her elegant compositions act as veils through which profound contemplation can be encountered.

Balancing refined simplicity with an emotional charge Ekholm’s serene paintings elicit moments of contemplation that resonates deeply with viewers. The organic flow of her forms and the meditative quality of her surfaces transcend the boundaries of abstraction, offering an experience that is both visually captivating and profoundly calming.

With a career spanning more than three decades, Ekholm’s work has been celebrated in over 30 solo exhibitions and is held in prestigious international and Australian collections. Her art continues to inspire, offering serene spaces for reflection and connection.

In a way nature is always the starting point. It acts as a mirror on the soul; a reflex. In nature I find something that triggers a kind of personal state of mind. Working with fast-drying acrylic and water, I use a sponge to apply layer upon layer of shapes and gestures with solid pigment and transparent washes, while continually washing and rubbing sections away until the final complex image is built. I may work for days on a small isolated section of the painting. It is an obsessive and fastidious process and the work travels a complex journey of twists and turns before I have found the ‘solution’ which is that painting's final incarnation.
Artist Statement, Agneta Ekholm

Agneta Ekholm’s large canvases with their subtle, dissolving semi-transparent veils of colour, even on first encounter, are striking and unforgettable. They are deeply immersive paintings – refined, exquisite and restrained – works that operate on a non-verbal, contemplative level, more like painted music than a painted narrative.
Excerpt from essay by Sasha Grishin, 2023

Primed with subdued emotion, Ekholm’s works are built intuitively from deep imaginings as well as a formalist engagement with a technical process honed over more than two decades. Each painting evolves organically on the canvas, the very first mark like a seed dropped from the artist’s mind. Working with fast-drying acrylic and water, Ekholm uses a sponge to meticulously apply layers of solid pigment and transparent washes to create moments that are ephemeral yet resolute. She rubs sections away in a reductive process that leaves shadows, echoes, memories. These spectral presences haunt the canvas in undulating veils and cascading contours, their elegant opacity suggesting the existence of some deep cognitive space. Beneath the translucent ivory veils, in the swirling pools and inky voids, there is the promise of insight through contemplation.
Excerpt from essay by Elli Walsh, 2022

ARTIST PROFILE:
Finnish-born, Victorian-based artist Agneta Ekholm has been a finalist in the Muswellbrook Art Prize, Ravenswood Art Prize, the Wilson Visual Art Award, the Fleurieu Art Prize, the Mount Eyre Art Prize, the Fisher’s Ghost Art Award and the Redland Art Award as well as being a six time finalist in the Calleen Art Award. In 2017 Agneta won the Best Artist Award at Denfair. She has completed major commissions for the Novotel, Melbourne, the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Guangzhou, China, the Marriott Hotel, Beijing, and The Parisian Sands, Macau, China. Her works are held in major public and private collections nationally and internationally, including Ritz Carlton Yacht Collection, Artbank, the Embassy of Finland (Australia), Sony Music Corporation, Google (USA), JW Marriott Hotel, Miami, Florida, Marriott Dallas Market Center, USA, Mandarin Oriental, Guangzhou, Marriott Hotel, Beijing and Rydges Hotel Group.

On 2020 Agneta Ekholm completed an impressive 6 metre-long commission for the Ritz Carlton Yacht Collection. This piece is now traveling the world on the Ritz Carlton's exclusive luxury accommodation.