Anna-Karin Rasmusson, OMSORGEN, video installation, mixed media, 20 February – 8 April 2020

To take care of and to be taken care of. The exposure, the relationship of power. Alternating roles. And birth, the biggest separation. Growing hurts, cracks up. Bodies that are inside will emerge, over and over again in infinity.

Cecilia Hillström Gallery is proud to present Anna-Karin Rasmusson’s first solo show at the gallery, OMSORGEN. In her art, Rasmusson focus on human interaction, both physical and emotional. She works mainly with video and installations, where painting plays an important role. Everyday tasks are repetitively performed in a scenography built like a collage of painted cardboard boxes and boards. Video works are often projected on top of each other, creating multifaceted layers of moving images.

In OMSORGEN (The Care) Rasmusson delves into the different aspects and perspectives of caring. A video work is projected directly on the floor in the gallery room surrounded by a scenography of rough walls and video projections in a site-specific installation. Through the multi-layered projections, Rasmusson explores alternating roles of taking care of and to be taken care of. The masked characters in the videos – played by herself – are involved in somewhat awkward attempts to support, comfort and reach out to each other.

In the video installation, images are interwoven with sounds of children laughing, pointing at an ongoing play, which is balanced by an out of step tapping sound in the background – almost like the ticking sound of a clock. The presence of time, speeding up and slowing down, pinpoints the elusive feeling of distress when grasping for something beyond reach, of getting closer, while the ongoing lifecycle continues. In a broad sense, Rasmusson’s expressive and painterly imagery highlights complex feelings of inadequacy, disorientation, loss and tenderness.

Read the exhibition text by Pia Kristoffersson here.