Erik Sigerud

Born 1977, Borlänge, Sweden

Erik Sigerud is a Swedish painter. He lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden. His painting represents people and places. These, to him, symbolize the political trends of today’s society.

Layered paintings

Sigerud mixes figuration with a non-figurative painting in several layers. His painting depicts places, people and abstract fragments in dystopian scenes. They represent the culture in which the artist lives. As well as the normative man in this culture. With his painting, Sigerud explores how culture and people create each other. He connects social interactions with world trends. And also, the relationship between politics and personal feelings.

The process

Sigerud finds visual inspiration from other paintings. At the conceptual level, he draws inspiration from definitions of politics. For instance, the question of who controls a picture or how perception creates reality. Sigerud frequently uses images from his sketchbooks, 3D models and family photo albums. He also finds pictures in the media and on the Internet. By stacking layers in different styles, Sigerud paints a visual and mental uncertainty. It is a liberating uncertainty that Sigerud seeks. An uncertainty that makes the mind work. To advance each painting as far as possible, Sigerud plans his painting in Photoshop. Yet, during the actual execution of the painting the process takes over. The final composition consists of borrowed images, sketchbook visions and process-based images.

About his work

Above all, Erik Sigerud works with painting. The medium is also the most important subject in his work. Sigerud paints to contribute to discussions about art and painting. His creative drive stems from the need to make existence tangible. Frustrated that there are no common experiences, he paints cracks. Cracks between collective stories and a subjective understanding of events. Sigerud believes that we create mental images to understand ourselves and to manage the world around us. Images that we rebuild when we meet new places, new stories, and new people. His paintings are wordless mental images. These deal with, among other things, his fear of fascism and climate change. Sigerud asks, what emotions contribute to mental and collective images and political change. He also wonders how mental and collective images create each other.

MFA from Beaux-Arts

Erik Sigerud is a Swedish painter but studied art in Paris and Berlin. He obtained his master’s degree in fine arts at the Beaux-Arts in Paris in 2004. In 2003, he spent six months at the Universität der Künste in Berlin. He has also studied art and philosophy at, among other institutions, the Royal Academy of Arts in Stockholm. He has done many solo and group exhibitions and has exhibited both in Sweden and abroad. Over the years, he has received numerous awards. His paintings are part of a permanent collection at Uppsala Konstmuseum.