I mmersive Landscapes: Contemporary Female Artists Reconsider a Traditional Genre BY ANDREA ALVAREZ
Three Nordic artists consider the relationship between humans and the natural world, and the impact of climate change on both. Here, engagement with nature is not merely an aesthetic choice, but an experiential and phenomenological imperative. Nordic artists have long been engaged in the landscape tradition, although this classical genre has largely been dominated by male painters. In the Nordic contemporary art world, female artists are increasingly celebrated for their contributions, especially those that engage with tradition in new manners. For artists like Sigrid Sandström, Kristiina Uusitalo, and Apichaya Wanthiang (who live in Sweden, Finland, and Norway respectively), the landscape genre provides a rich backdrop to their more penetrating and immersive practices. Each artist, in her own way, considers the relationship between humans and the natural world, and the impact of climate change on both. Engagement with nature in their art practices is not merely an aesthetic choice, but an experiential and phenomenological imperative. The work implicates their audience by expanding its field
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beyond the frame and into the physical and psychological space of each viewer. Sigrid Sandström (Swedish, born 1970) uses her abstract paintings to evoke a sense of immediacy, as though the plasticky surfaces always remain freshly painted, and as though the diaphanous forms might blow in the wind. The minute details of her textures call attention to the materiality of the work, which has already been centered by how they are installed. Through the layout of her exhibitions, Sandström explores what she calls the “site of painting,” which is to say that the arena in which the paintings function does not end at the edges of the canvas. Rather, they are often juxtaposed in relation to one another: wall-based works are hung throughout, while freestanding upright or recumbent canvases and mirrors populate the gallery floor. In a recent exhibition in Houston, Texas, small paintings were placed throughout the gallery to foreground the wall pieces and create a dialogue between the wall-based works, the smaller works, and the visitor. This dialogue draws the visitor’s attention to their physical position in the gal-
