SOLO EXHIBITION

BAT SEBA

Kewenig

Palma

2018

Photo: Maria Calafat

PRESSRELEASE

ELISABETH FRIEBERG

« BAT SEBA »

24 March – 2 June 2018

Opening: 24 March 11 am - 2 pm

KEWENIG is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition in Spain of the artist Elisabeth Frieberg (*1977, Sweden) at the gallery's location in Palma de Mallorca, the 13th century chapel, Sant Feliu Oratory, opening 24 March on the occasion of Art Palma Brunch.

This exhibition takes its name from one of the two key paintings in the show, Bat Seba, No. 4, which seems to have been created especially for the Oratory. The biblical love story between Bathsheba and King David, rewritten and extended in Bat Seba (1984) by the Swedish author Torgny Lindgren (1938 – 2017), provoked clear images of the two protagonists for Frieberg, leading to the two large abstract portraits Bet Seba, No. 4 and King David, around which eight other works revolve. The space and layout of the chapel play a very important role for the artist, as if the presentation of her work is a performance.

These two paintings, like their namesakes, are in constant dialogue with one another. They share a new, contemporary love story in the chapel, transposed by Frieberg. They dance together within the space (to Giorgio Moroder's Italo disco in the mind of the artist), King David, intoxicated by Bat Seba is compelled to dance around her. She, in turn is persuaded to move due simply to the allure of the music.

Frieberg is a risk taker, tracing her personal experience into her work, energetically transposing nature and the world around her, through beaming colours, vibrating lines, and haptic layering, allowing for unexpected encounters to transpire. The works are created, like mind maps, in which the more complex the map, the more exciting the encounter. Frieberg's works have an ever present, improvisational, poetic mood - toying with scale, rhythm and time with an ever-evolving inquisitive disposition.

Elisabeth Frieberg, born in 1977 in Stjärnhov, Sweden, currently lives and works in Stockholm, where she teaches painting at Konstfack, the largest Art Academy in Sweden. In 2010 she obtained her Masters degree in Fine Arts at Umeå Academy of Fine Arts, Sweden. Frieberg has received various scholarships, among them from The Swedish Arts Grants Committee, the Ester Lindahl Foundation, The Olle Baertling Foundation and The Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts.

Her work has been exhibited at Magasin III Museum & Foundation for Contemporary Art (private view), Stockholm (2017); The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, Stockholm (2016); Index – The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, Stockholm (2016); Uppsala Konstmuseum, Uppsala (2015); and Fondazione Cini, Venice (2015). Frieberg’s works are included in private and public collections such as Moderna Museet, Stockholm, The National Public Art Council Sweden, and the Aguélimuseet, Sala.

Bat Seba, No. 4, 2017. Oil on linen. 265 x 200 cm.

Blue, Gold, Sun, 2017. Oil on linen. 183 x 183 cm.

King David, 2017. Oil on linen. 261 x 196 cm.