Shadow Play

Shadow Play took the place of honour when it was included in Sandström’s fourth solo exhibition, Sigrid Sandström - De blå timmarna (The Blue Hours), at Cecilia Hillström Gallery in Stockholm (20 February - 29 March 2025), featuring a new series of paintings in acrylics and oil stick.

The blue hour (from French l'heure bleue) is the period of twilight (in the morning or evening, around the nautical stage) when the sun is at a significant depth below the horizon. During this time, the remaining sunlight takes on a mostly blue shade. This shade differs from the colour of the sky on a clear day, which is caused by Rayleigh scattering. The blue hour occurs when the Sun is far enough below the horizon so that the sunlight’s blue wavelengths dominate due to the Chappuis absorption caused by ozone. Since the term is colloquial, it lacks an official definition such as dawn, dusk, or the three stages of twilight. Rather, blue hour refers to the state of natural lighting that usually occurs around the nautical stage of the twilight period (at dawn or dusk). The blue hour is shorter in regions near the equator due to the sun rising and setting at steep angles. In places closer to the poles, the illumination and twilight periods are longer as the sun rises and sets at shallower angles.

Since the Impressionists, this time of day has been valued by artists for the quality of its soft light. In the painting Impression, soleil levant / Impression, sunrise (1874, oil on canvas, 48 x 63 cm, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris) by Claude Monet (1840 - 1926), claimed to have inspired the name of the entire Impressionist movement, transitional light is key. For late 19th century Scandinavian painters like Karl Nordström (1855 - 1923, Swedish painter who specialized in landscapes; chairman of Konstnärsförbundet / The Artists’ Association, 1896 - 1920), Nils Kreuger (1858 - 1930, Swedish painter specializing in landscapes and rural scenes; later member of Konstnärsförbundet / The Artists’ Association, around which time he abandoned painting en plein air in favour of Romantic nationalism), Eugène Jansson (1862 - 1915, Swedish painter known for his night-time land- and cityscapes dominated by shades of blue. Towards the end of his life, from about 1904, he mainly painted male nudes. The earlier of these phases has caused him to sometimes be referred to as blåmålaren; ‘the blue-painter’), and Peder Severin Krøyer (1851 - 1909, Danish painter and leading exponent of The Skagen Painters, a group of Scandinavian artists who gathered in the village of Skagen, on the northernmost part of Denmark, from the late 1870s until the turn of the century), the use of blue hues allowed them to capture the awakening, or disappearance, of the day. Krøyer was inspired by the light of the evening ‘blue hour’, which made the water and sky seem to optically merge. This is captured in one of his most famous paintings, Summer Evening at Skagen Beach - The Artist and his Wife (1899, oil on canvas, 135 x 187 cm, Hirschsprung Collection, Copenhagen).

In connection with Sandström’s exhibition, Cecilia Hillström Gallery wrote the following:

In Sandström’s show, the title may imply that the ambiguous stretch of dusk goes on for hours during the Nordic winter season. This sensation has indeed been reinforced in the gallery where the windowpanes have been covered by different shades of blue, continuously altering the play of light in the room and leaving the paintings in a state of flux. Over recent years, Sandström’s paintings have evolved into more organic and softer shapes, where the absorbing quality of the canvas allows brush strokes, imprints and remnants to seep through the fabric. In De blå timmarna, largescale paintings, where stark colour patches meet thin layers of paint, are put in contrast to smaller and distinctively figurative paintings in oil stick. On one of the walls, a painting in 8 parts inspired by Japanese landscape painting, invites the viewer to walk alongside the work. The concept of blue has several connotations: calmness, distance, sadness, and melancholy. In a time of ongoing wars and where turmoil is getting closer, Sigrid Sandström’s exhibition bears the emotional marks of pressing political and environmental issues. De blå timmarna offers a transition from vigilance to rest, from the pressing issues of reality to reflection and serenity.

Provenance

Cecilia Hillström Gallery, Stockholm, Sigrid Sandström - De blå timmarna, 20 February - 29 March 2025.

Firestorm Foundation (acquired at the above).

Copyright Firestorm Foundation