Passage

True art can and should be appreciated on its own merits, without placing too much emphasis on the artist behind it. True art ‘connects’ with the viewer primarily through its sheer visual power and secondarily through any underlying message that may be extracted from it. In Ulla Wiggen’s case, however, the mysteriously suggestive allure that radiates from her works (whether they are schematic so-called ‘electronic paintings’ from the 1960s, realistically executed and lyrically refined portraits from the 1970s, or anatomically based works, verging on abstraction, from the 2000s) can be explained by the artist’s lifelong and profound interest in technology, natural science, and psychology.

Wiggen has stated that ‘art is there to be experienced and to make people more perceptive, more sensitive, more thoughtful, more alive, and more open. This applies both to our own inner world and to the world around us.’ In these few lines, Wiggen captures much of the essence of her creative work. Wiggen’s art reflecting, once again her interest in natural science and psychology, often concerns itself with human perception and our senses. Wiggen claims to be inspired by creative people’s outlook on life, their experiences, and their way of thinking. This usually occurs through art and literature, but most important to the artist are encounters with other people, where the content as well as the manner of communication are of significance.

Having enjoyed a successful career as a painter from the mid-1960s, Wiggen studied psychology at Stockholm University (1978-1986) and then became a licensed psychotherapist in 1987. For a number of years she worked mainly as a psychotherapist in private practice, with painting as a sideline, until she experienced something of a ‘comeback’ in the early 2010s. In the wake of her well-received solo exhibition Moment at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, in 2013, painting, once again, became her main occupation and focus.

Beginning around 2013, she started working on paintings that draw motifs from the inside of the body (in works such as Vestibulum, 2013, acrylic on canvas, 26 x 35 cm, Firestorm Foundation), and Passage. These works, depicting human organs like hearts, brains, and teeth, explore the boundary between outside and inside, both physically and mentally. With her precise paintings from this later period, Wiggen (surrounded in her studio by X-rays and illustrations from anatomy books) seeks to create order in the intangible inner life that goes on under the surface. When, in 2016 (the very year that Passage was executed), Wiggen was asked to describe her art in just three words, she chose: precision, clarity, and passion.

Most successful contemporary artists of today would be less inclined to give away too much information about what goes on behind the closed doors of the studio. Not Wiggen, however. In the same year as Passage was executed, she generously shared the following elaborate insight into her creative process at the time (‘Konstens frågeformulär # 22: Ulla Wiggen’, konsten.net, 11 October 2016):

I accumulate impressions that intuitively grab my attention, things I see, sometimes things I hear. Suddenly, something comes together, something new takes shape. The work on a painting can begin. The vision emerges from an inner process that seems to be ongoing around the clock and often reaches consciousness in the state between dreaming and wakefulness. The original vision then evolves through new intuitively awakened ideas. I modify the various elements I try to bring together until they resonate with something within me. It feels like I am searching for something I have never seen before, but which I am compelled to capture in order to see. To prevent the process from stalling when I don't know how to proceed, I shift my focus. It's important that I move freely between the different stages of painting, observing, seeking new impressions and reworking. I want every action to move the process forward, either by excluding, altering or adding something new. I often question what I have done; nothing is certain until the painting is finished. Nowadays, I sketch and do colour tests to move forward. The pieces of the puzzle must fit together to form a whole. Ultimately, everything I have put together must look natural, and I must be unable to think of anything else to change or add. In addition to the classic tools such as paint, brushes and sketchbooks, the computer, camera and projector are important tools in my artistic exploration and creative process. A strong driving force during this process is my curiosity regarding how the painting will appear when it is finished. I am fascinated by the process that brings it to life and I constantly strive to develop my methods and my visual perception. Each painting demands something new from me.

In an interview for KONSTNÄREN (member magazine of Konstnärernas Riksorganisation/The Artists’ Association of Sweden), Ulla Wiggen recounted the dramatic events that led to the creation of Passage (Sofia Curman, ‘Ulla Wiggen – The Return’, 2020):

She tells me about a painting entitled Passage from 2016, which she painted during a period when she had been ill for a long time and was at risk of losing her sight. I click on it on the website as we talk. Two brain hemispheres float against a reddish-orange background. It is the retina inside the eye, she explains, with the macula and the blind spot. The lower part of the canvas is covered by a beige, enlarged brain that disappears out of the picture.

-‘The two hemispheres of the brain are like a small ball – I felt that they were rotating, as if they were about to land on the cerebral cortex. I thought of the film Gravity, which I had recently seen. A space film, one of those 3D ones, incredibly fascinating. A man and a woman are sitting in a space capsule, and the woman tells him that she has lost her child. But then the film ends with this woman eventually landing on Earth, dropping down into some desolate landscape, and when I looked at my painting, I thought it resembled that landing. And then the thought came to me that I too will land, that is to say: I will get well again. I had been very afraid of what would happen with that illness. But somehow it was as if my body knew that it would cope with it. Dreams can be like that, they can be ahead of our consciousness in a process, something inside us knows how things are and tries to help us understand by creating images. Paintings can do the same thing. Passage definitely did that, and my anxiety disappeared’.

Provenance

Collection Pataky.

Belenius, Stockholm, 2025.

Firestorm Foundation (acquired through the above).

Exhibitions

Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany, Outside/Inside, 24 February-28 July 2024.

EMMA, Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Espoo, Finland, Ulla Wiggen-Passage, 18 September 2024-26 January 2025.

Västerås konstmuseum (Västerås Art Museum), Västerås, Sweden, Ulla Wiggen-Passage, 15 March-31 August 2025.

Literature

Barbro Schultz Lundestam & Gunnar Lundestam, Party for Öyvind, exhibition catalogue, Sven-Harrys konstmuseum, Stockholm/Museum Tinguely, Basel, Switzerland/Kunstverein, Hamburg, 2021, illustrated in colour, p. 321.

Daniel Birnbaum, Peter Cornell, Sabeth Buchmann and Caleb Considine, Ulla Wiggen, 2022, illustrated full page in colour, p. 80.

Miscellaneous

Passage gave name to Wiggen’s successful 2024-2025 solo exhibitions at EMMA, Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Espoo, Finland and Västerås Art Museum, Västerås, Sweden.

Copyright Firestorm Foundation