Mamma/Mother

Ester Eriksson’s quirky (and graphic novel-inspired) contemporary art offers a witty (but still heartfelt) take on some of the challenges that human life has to offer. Recurring themes in her work explore heartbreak, loneliness, mental health/lack of control and the, often, accompanying and ensuing feelings of despair, guilt and shame.

The frank (and unapologetic) manner in which she addresses these strong and sometimes slightly controversial subjects is powerful, and Eriksson’s slightly anarchistic art, thus, amuses as well as it disturbs the viewer in equal measure. Particularly so as it is told through Eriksson’s own (chaotic, loveable and hilarious) alter ego, presented in her works as someone looking a lot like Walt Disney’s Goofy.

This cartoonish character is a struggling being who embarrassingly flirts with random guys at night, makes tearful phone calls to her dad when she’s drunk, and ends up feeling despondent and hopeless but still (somehow), after all, manages to remain sassy, smart, and confident.

A viewer might easily be misled by the superficial aspects (with their overtones of pop art and comic books), but (as mentioned above) beneath the surface lie undertones of the artist’s deeply personal experiences of being human, with the flaws and faults that this entails for us all. Ahead of the group exhibition CFHILL ANNUAL 2019 (30 August–19 September 2019) at CFHILL in Stockholm, Eriksson touched upon this in an interview with Lo Hallén (‘Can You Handle This? Interview with Ester Eriksson’, 14 August 2019):

It’s rather been a matter of making myself aware of certain behaviours I fall into. It’s been a kind of therapy, too. Let’s say I made a fool of myself over the weekend, perhaps by calling out for somebody at night. On those occasions, it’s been liberating for me to make a drawing of it, about it, so that I can at least acknowledge the funny side of it.

A couple of years later, Eriksson participated in two more group exhibitions at CFHILL: Smorgasbord (4 June—14 August 2021) and UPCLOSE (3 September—1 October 2021). On these occasions (as before) images of her alter ego, Goofy, took centre stage.

The following year, however, Eriksson presented new works in a completely different technique. CFHILL’s exhibition 1100 Degrees From Constantinople to Cyborg Futurism — A Story in Bronze (3 December 2021—7 January 2022) presented bronze sculptures by 16 artists: Bella Rune (born 1971), Carl Milles (1875-1955), Cajsa von Zeipel (born 1983), Lena Cronqvist (1938-2025), Jens Fänge (born 1965), Klara Kristalova (born 1967), Charlotte Gyllenhammar (born 1963), Cecilia Edefalk (born 1954), Jesper Waldersten (born 1969), Meta Isæus-Berlin (born 1963), Torsten Renqvist (1924-2007), Denise Grünstein (1950-2023), Henrik Ekesiöö (born 1983), Ester Eriksson, Katrine Helmersson (1958-2024) & Kajsa Mattas (born 1948).

Although present also on this occasion (Goofy, 2021, bronze, 10 x 10 x 11 cm), Eriksson’s alter ego was accompanied by other characters in the form of the following sculptures: Visslaren /The Whistler (2021, bronze, 22 x 30 x 9 cm), BabyRagna (2021, bronze, 13 x 12 x 11 cm), Mamma /Mother (2021, bronze, 43 x 20 cm) and BabyBat (2021, bronze, 18 x 9 cm). The background to these motifs, such as Mother and BabyBat in the collections of the Firestorm Foundation, could be glimpsed in the text of the exhibition catalogue:

she borrows freely from pop culture and has adopted Goofy’s loose-limbed, slightly confused, and stooped persona as her own in a long-running and ongoing series of comic strips narrating hilarious scenes from everyday life. Awkward relationships with men, the unpredictable cycles of hubris and self-loathing, and the self-understanding gained in therapy and derailed nights on the town. The dark undertone is ever-present. A few years ago, a new person entered the picture: her daughter. Now, the child’s point of view has become even more present, more sincere. The two have formed a team, using coloured pencils and all sorts of tools to paint and draw. In the book Humlan Hanssons hemligheter, for which the text was written by Kristina Sigunsdotter, children are portrayed as mythological animal fables – different, but still safe and familiar. In Ester Eriksson’s new pieces, the characters have taken on a third dimension and arrived in the world with the same natural assuredness as any of Carl Milles’s aquatic gods and naiads.

The bat motif had already appeared, albeit in a different context, earlier. A few years prior, Eriksson had suffered from severe depression following the death of her mother. In connection with a public commission for the central station in Lund, Sweden, six of Eriksson’s enlarged drawings (originally executed in oil pastel and charcoal) were displayed as billboards (1 November 2021–30 April 2022). In these dreamlike images, Eriksson wanted to create a world holding on to what is transient in real life. The images were stories without words, an attempt to connect with those who have left earthly life. Eriksson herself said that she wanted to:

depict death and the divine. The soul, which, like a bird, is on its way to heaven. My hands are like veined leaves trying to capture the image. Death, a bat with patchwork wings. In the room afterwards, there is only silence and my mother’s homemade curtains.

Provenance

CFHILL, Stockholm, 1100 Degrees. From Constantinople to Cyborg Futurism — A Story in Bronze, 3 December 2021 - 7 January 2022.

Firestorm Foundation (acquired from the above).