Alex Colard

ABOUT the artist

Contemporary Sámi artist Anders Sunna, born in 1985, grew up in Kiruna. He lives and works in Jokkmokk, Sweden. Sunna studied fine arts at the Konstfack College of Arts in Stockholm during 2006–09 and at the Umeå Academy of Fine Arts in 2004–06. Sunna’s art is explicitly political, speaking out about discrimination against the Sámi people through depicting the history of his own family in Pajala, northern Sweden. In his paintings, Sunna examines stereotypes of the Sámi as well as the general public’s ignorance of Sámi culture. In his artistic work, Sunna combines painting with collage and street art techniques. The works of Anders Sunna articulate a sense of picturesque brutality. With a painterliness verging on pure fury, he depicts an equally merciless reality in heavy, opaque fields of color contrasted against thinly applied layers of paint, running spray paint, collage and found materials. Sunna renders an explosive political content colored by personal experiences. Authoritarian, threatening and heavily symbol laden architecture cuts through landscapes where traces of conflict are further enhanced by mounds of skulls and barbed wire.

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ABOUT the exhibition

The spirited mix of explicitly political statements, history, references to duodji and Sami mysticism, graffiti, mural painting, sublime nature romanticism, and expressive roars of color, also inhabit something unusual: a conviction about art’s function as a means of communication.
Sebastian Johans

The works of Anders Sunna articulate a sense of picturesque brutality. With a painterliness verging on pure fury, he depicts an equally merciless reality in heavy, opaque fields of color contrasted against thinly applied layers of paint, running spray paint, collage and found materials. Sunna renders an explosive political content colored by personal experiences. Authoritarian, threatening and heavily symbol laden architecture cuts through landscapes where traces of conflict are further enhanced by mounds of skulls and barbwire. 

Anders Sunna was born in Kieksiäisvaara, Sweden, 1985. He lives and works in Jokkmokk, Sweden. Sunna studied at Konstfack – University of Arts, Craft and Design (2006 – 2009). He participated in The Moderna Exhibition, Moderna Museet, 2018; Every Leaf is an Eye, Göteborgs Konsthall, 2019 – 2020; The trees, light green: Landscape painting – past and present, Bonniers Konsthall, 2020; and in the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, 2020. His work is represented in the collection of Moderna Museet and at the Museum of International Folk Art, Santa Fe, USA, among other public collections. 

In 2022 Anders Sunna will partake in the 59th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale. Together with artists Pauliina Feodoroff and Máret Ánne Sara he will represent Sápmi, his Sámi homeland, and transform the Nordic Pavilion into the Sámi Pavilion.

A catalogue will be published in connection to Anders Sunna’s exhibition at the gallery.

ABOUT the gallery

A renowned gallery space in Stockholm. Today under the capable supervision of Angelika Knäpper, with an exclusive list of artists. The gallery exhibits established as well as emerging Scandinavian and international artists in solo shows and in curated group exhibitions.

Bohman-Knäpper
Sturegatan 36
114 36, Stockholm
See On Map

+46 (0)8 28 97 93
info@bohman-knapper.com

Tuesday to Friday 12-18, Saturday 12-16
And by appointment

*The gallery follows the government’s and the public health agency’s recommendations regarding Covid-19 and only a limited number of visitors will be allowed in the exhibition space at a time.

Bohman-Knäpper
Rådmansgatan 15
114 25, Stockholm
See On Map

+46 (0)7 09 13 48 22
info@bohman-knapper.com

Open by appointment

STAFF
Angelika Knäpper
angelika@bohman-knapper.com
+46 (0)7 09 13 48 22

Emelie Axelsson
emelie@bohman-knapper.com
+46 (0)7 32 34 46 16