Women in the North: Kajsa Zetterquist in focus

With Grass Under the Feet–Kajsa Zetterquist in Focus presents a dozen works by the eight nine-year-old painter who has lived in the roadless land of Saltfjellet in northern Norway since 1967. The exhibition presents approximately one work per decade, beginning in the 1950s when she enrolled at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm. From there, we can trace her expressive idiom—from the Informalist school to the sensitive drawings of the 2020s. In addition to the works, the exhibition focuses on her unique life in the mountains with her artist husband Per Adde (1924–2020).

Artist Ingela Johansson has created a video portrait of Zetterquist specifically for the exhibition, highlighting various aspects of her work—including her advocacy for the environment and Sámi rights, as well as her role in establishing an infrastructure for contemporary art in Northern Norway. Her efforts in founding the art school in Kabelvåg, the North Norwegian Art Museum in Romsa/Tromsø, and the Academy of Fine Arts in the same city are of lasting significance. Two new texts, by artist and writer Ilmira Bolotyan and curator Olga Shirokostup, respectively, address Zetterquist and Adde’s friendship with Soviet painter Yuri Reshkin and how boundless solidarity has permeated their lives and work. The texts are presented in a separate publication.

Zetterquist’s painting is characterized by an interest in the specific expressive possibilities of painting: color, line, volume, and the interplay between surface and depth are all important aspects of the paintings. Together they emphasize the value of sensory experience. The gaze, travelling between the different parts of the picture, plays a central role. In 1957, after studying at the Konstfack School and the private Signe Barth School of Painting, Zetterquist was admitted to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts where, under the influence of professors such as Ragnar Sandberg, Lennart Rodhe, Bror Hjort, and Bror Marklund, she developed an independent artistic practice with a distinctive and personal expression. Since the late 1960s, her paintings have taken shape in her studio on Saltfjellet, surrounded by the magical light and suggestive darkness of the northern latitudes.

The exhibition is part of Women in the North, one of three thematic threads that has woven through the museum’s activities over the last several years.

The exhibition is organized in collaboration with Adde Zetterquist kunstgalleri.

Photo 1: Kajsa Zetterquist, Felicias dans 2005-2006
Photo 2: Ingela Johansson, Still from video: The Calm Steps Behind
Photo 3: Ingela Johansson, Still from video: The Calm Steps Behind