Maria Grudéus constantly returns to the forest in her paintings. Throughout growing up, it has been a place for play, imagination and recovery. The relationship with and dependence on nature as an obvious and vital part of everyday life carries the artist with him through family lines of farmers and foresters. Grudéu's painting begins in the forest, in the experience of the forest. It is never a specific place that is depicted, but the mood and feeling the place evokes. Breathing in the saturated forest air, leaning your head against a gnarled tree trunk, feeling the damp moss against your hand. It is that feeling that the motifs strive to capture. Then working with water, pigment, paper and the movements of the brush becomes a response to that feeling and a way to reinterpret and process rational reality. Grudéus moves on the border between abstraction and reality, and wants to make the feeling and sensory impressions a reality.
The artist describes her creation as a conversation with nature where the starting point is the silent communication between herself and the surrounding forest, which fills the inner world with impressions and images. Through the expression of painting, something new is created as a response. The hope is that it will evoke feelings and memories in the viewer, which in this way will make the conversation continue.
About the artist
Maria Grudéus (b.1987) was born in Gävle, grew up in Tierpsbygden and now lives in Uppsala. Her work has been shown at several jury-judged salons, including Tierp Municipality’s Art on the Road, the Spring Salon at Gävle Art Center and the Watercolor Salon at Väsby Art Gallery. In 2022 she was awarded Väsby Konsthall’s Watercolor scholarship.
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