Sara-Vide Ericson | Desire of the Tail: Institut suédois, Paris, France

A woman draped in a long skirt and a large shawl sits on a tide of barnacles against what looks like a cliff, a vast wall of brown and chalky tones painted in broad, expressive, almost abstract brushstrokes. She confronts us with her gaze, a rare motif in Sara-Vide Ericson’s work. It is difficult to identify the nature of the landscape and its location. Are we on a beach, by the sea, on the banks of a river or at the edge of a forest? Who is this contemporary oracle, and what message does she wish to deliver?

Sara-Vide Ericson’s work is characterised by large figurative oil paintings inspired by her immediate environment. Recurring motifs in her work include souvenir objects linked to various stories and experiences, her own horses, and the nature that surrounds her – the forests, rivers and marshes of Hälsingland, the wild region of northern Sweden where she grew up and where she and her family relocated almost 10 years ago. However, her paintings are neither navel-gazing self-portraits nor naturalistic landscapes. Boycotting the soft green that heralds the arrival of spring every year, rushing to collect materials before the fateful season begins, Sara-Vide Ericson does not paint the “beautiful nature”, the picture-postcard nature often depicted by artists from Sweden and elsewhere. Cavernous, muddy, dangerous, even devouring, nature is an indomitable force which the artist comes to terms with more than she tries to represent it. Although Sara-Vide Ericson’s paintings are based on her own experience and sometimes feature herself, they reveal very little about her. Her inner landscapes, open to multiple interpretations, remain intriguing mysteries. In search of a form of archetype, they resonate with archaic myths, evoking a primitive and original timelessness. In this way, they are canvases which we are all invited to immerse ourselves in to explore our own connection to the world, to nature, to animals, to ourselves, to living things.