Biography
Maja Eriksson (b. 1996, Linköping, Sweden) is an artist based in Glasgow, Scotland.
Education
2019-2022
BA(Hons) Painting & Printmaking, Glasgow School of Art
2018-2019
KonstLab, Lunnevads folkhögskola
2015- 2017
Konstlinjen, Lunnevads folkhögskola
Exhibitions
SOLO
2021
Hounds, SAAB Art Gallery, Linköping
GROUP
2022
Ringar på vattnet, Passagen Konsthall, Linköping
2022
Glasgow School of Art Undergraduate Degree Show, Stow College, Glasgow
gsashowcase.net
2022
Heretic, the Garage Space, Glasgow
2021
Stuck, the Glue Factory, Glasgow
2021
First draft, virtual group show, Instagram and external website
firstdraftexhibition.cargo.site
2020
Something nice, virtual group show, Instagram
2019
Another Story, NP33, Norrköping
2017
Lunnevads folkhögskola group show, Galleri Vända Sida, Linköping
2016
Lunnevads folkhögskola group show, Galleri Magnifiket, Linköping
Awards
2015
Swedish Art Associations’ Award for Young Artists
Artist Statement
Dogs with snapping jaws and defiantly bowed heads are placed next to women in latex, leather and rope. When the paint flattens them onto the canvas and turn them into bone- and meatless material, they are liberated from the burden of living, remembering, forgetting. By my stern hand, they are bound to a surface and held there - not by rope, but by an audience that does not look away. They are stripped of identity and turned into icons, symbols, stock photos. I know they are Diana, Sue and Marianne, Rex, Nero and Spot, but that is between them and me; what I know, you do not. When I flip through an old notebook filled with unsent letters and steal a line from my past self to scrawl across a painting, did I invite you to read the full text?
You stare and squint and poke and prod. The canvas object sways slightly (as if it is feeling lightheaded). No one is meeting your gaze, they are all looking inwards with eyes shut and eyebrows furrowed in concentration, terror, introspection. You are not the only one looking - the is another, someone who is actively involved in the subjects'/objects' passivity. Their hands reach into the image, causing a ripple across the surface of the painting; the disturbance lifts both this and that to the forefront. Confessions, objections, observations.
YOUR TO COMMAND. That is one of many personalised inscriptions found on antique posy rings. The text is engraved on the inside of the band, therefore only making it visible when the wearer takes it off, and when originally gifted; the ring - already a symbol for the eternal, much like Bataille's Eye - carries a second message which is only revealed when the object no longer serves its intended purpose. Lockets are opened and closed by the wearer, the contents only selectively shown to others. Even so, upon seeing the locket shut, everyone knows that the wearer carries with them a secret love.
‘To be a dog woman is not necessarily to be downtrodden; that has very little to do with it. […] In these pictures every woman's a dog woman, not downtrodden, but powerful. To be bestial is good. It's physical. Eating, snarling, all activities to do with sensation are positive. To picture a woman as a dog is utterly believable.’
Paula Rego
‘Identification is not a psychological process; it is a pure structural operation: I am the one who has the same place I have.’
Roland Barthes