Date of birth: 1944
Place of birth: Stockholm, Sweden
Place of residence: Paris, France
Where did you train?
In Sweden, in Stockholm, first in an art school called Nyckelviksskolan, in the textile section, then at the art school called Konstfackskolan. I did some work experience in the department store NK at Astrid Sampe (sketches for industrial textile, design, graphics), and in the studio of Brita Grahn, in textiles still.
When and for what reasons did you settle in France?
After studying and training in Sweden, I came to Paris for the first time when I was 24, and immediately liked it, I felt ‘at home’ here. I came back in 1969, and enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Art monumental (frescoes) department in the studio of Jean Bertholle. Like many artists, I worked parallel to my studies, among other places for Editions du Seuil (I made first drafts and drew book covers) and then for advertising agencies.
What does France represent for you?
Paris was a cultural shock, I was comfortable and experienced great freedom of expression at the Beaux-Arts with the professors and the other students, an atmosphere I didn’t find in Sweden. France offers great diversity in the colours and the images that are not the same as in Nordic countries.
What about Sweden?
Thanks to a Swedish foundation aimed at helping artists, created by Axel Munthe, a doctor at the Swedish Royal Court and a writer, I was offered a residency in the Villa San Michele, on the hills of Capri (Italy). I was inspired to make a lithograph, commissioned in 2011 by the Association Artistique Suédoise in Paris, for its members.
What are your sources of inspiration and where do they come from?
I have my family roots in the island of Gotland, in the Baltic, a granitic island, which the coast of Brittany reminded me of: there I painted, worked as artist in residence in Dinan (Foundation Yvonne Jean-Hafen), exhibited in Saint-Malo in a maritime bookshop (La Droguerie de Marine).
How would you define yourself and/or define your work?
Like an artisan who expresses herself through a long-term undertaking in order to achieve her objective through a work that is perfect, always passionate, sometimes without limits.