Price: €250
Artist is based in: Sweden
Viola Sparre is a figurative painter whose practice centres on portraits of those closest to her—her family. Through painting, she explores themes of home, childhood, motherhood, identity, and the deeply human desire to feel needed, recognised, and connected.
As a mother of three and one of nine siblings, Sparre has always been surrounded by children, an experience that has profoundly shaped her artistic practice. Her work frequently focuses on the children in her life, whether present in the moment or recalled through memories of a childhood that has already passed. She is particularly interested in the psychological inheritance carried from early childhood and the ways in which formative experiences continue to shape adult identities, relationships, and patterns of behaviour.
In her paintings, Sparre brings together different timelines, tracing the marks that the past leaves on the present and examining what emerges when memory and lived reality intersect. Through this approach, she captures the complexities of family relationships and emotional bonds. Her images inhabit a space where factual accuracy becomes secondary to emotional truth—worlds in which nothing is entirely real, yet everything feels true.
Throughout her five years at Konstfack, these themes have formed the foundation of Sparre’s artistic practice, developing through exhibitions and ongoing research into family dynamics and personal narratives. This body of work has resulted in solo exhibitions at CFHILL Gallery in Stockholm and Körsbärsgården on Gotland. Works from the series have been acquired by the Ståhl Collection, Firestorm Foundation, and AMOCA Wales.
