ISSUES

For Market Art Fair 2024, ISSUES presents a solo booth by painter Ida Persson. The artist categorizes her paintings in power characters, for example, Watchers, Conductors and Gatekeepers. The Watchers have observing features and the Conductors arm-like structures, used for both controlling and caretaking. The Gatekeepers are walls that create either an inside or an outside. The new works are titled Mother I, II and III, and, Watcher I and II. The Mothers, related to the Watcher characters, have round shapes placed high on repetitive structures, suggesting a God-like source of life, yet observant. What’s more, for the fair, Ida has drawn a new layout of the other- wise square booth. Creating a sort of gate, on which Mother II and III are hung, the room inside becomes protective and intimate. In this inner space, the two small framed Watcher-works are presented together with Mother I.

Architecture is not only a significant aspect of Ida’s painted pictures, she also employs it when presenting them in physical spaces. This, we are happy to be able to do here, in an art fair context. A recent example of this was Numbness and Serenity, Ida’s survey exhibition at Varbergs Konsthall and subsequently, Ystad Konstmuseum. There, she made adjustments to the rooms by protruding walls at an angle, merging them with the abstract architecture in the paintings.

Ida was was trained at Umeå academy of fine arts, by renowned painter Ann Edholm. Both artists explore human traits inherent in shapes not found in nature. While Edholm lets her abstract pictures become subjected to human conditions through their viewers, Persson’s pictures portray things such as power, control and care-taking.

IDA PERSSON (b. Ystad, 1985) lives in Nybrostrand and works in Löderup, on Österlen in South Sweden. In 2015, she won the prestigious Fredrik Roos Award “for developing a personal imagery that reveals the power of relationships in society.” She was the recipient of the Bærtling Scholarship in 2019, The City of Malmö Culture Grant in 2017 and Sparbanksstiftelsen Skånes culture grant in 2023.

Solo shows include Caretaker at ISSUES, Stockholm (2023); Numbness and Serenity at both Ystads Konstmuseum, Ystad, Sweden (2023) and Varbergs Konsthall, Varberg, Sweden (2022) and Docile Bodies at Erik Nordenhake, Stockholm (2017). Group exhibitions include Twilight Land at Moderna Museet Malmö, Malmö (2022); Portionsavund at Konstnärshuset, Stockholm (2022); Downtown Issues at ISSUES (2021); Modernautställningen at Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2018) and Swedish Art: Now! at Sven-Harrys konstmuseum, Stockholm (2016).

Ida’s work can be found in collections such as those of Moderna Museet, Statens Konstråd, Ystad Konstmuseum, Region Skåne and Uppsala Konstmuseum.