Artist presentation

Anna R Kinman is a Swedish artist working in ceramics and bronze for public and private spaces. Her work depicts a fascination with the lines in nature that can also be found in our human, wordless communication, in gestures and body language. 

Both the wild and the cultivated inspire her and she has worked in collaboration with landscape/garden artists, dancers, and chefs. As an artist she can see many connections between sculpture and music, such as long lines and complexity, heaviness and lightness, rhythm and pulse. Even in large sculptures, she strives for lightness and grace and wishes to capture a sense of motion and direction. Strength and fragility are equally important. Sensuousness, honesty and courage are essential in her working process.

She holds a Master of Arts in Music Performance (2001) and a Master of Fine Arts in Music Education (1998) with studies in Sweden, Italy and Denmark. She has studied ceramic art and craft through courses at Capellagården, Bohusläns folkhögskola, etc. Bronze casting techniques with Master Jonas Högström. 

Her ceramic and bronze works can be found in Japan, Italy, France, Switzerland, Netherlands, Australia, USA, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden.

Her sculptures, convey many stories. One is about the power of growth, in nature as well as in humans. Another is about how everything is interconnected—how we depend on one another, nourish one another, carry one another, much like how nature is interconnected in biotopes and ecosystems. The fragile is also the strong. There is sorrow and existential loneliness, but death, impermanence, becomes a prerequisite for new life. Life, experience, leaves traces, and at the same time brings beauty and strength.

The working process with bronze is long and demanding, with many different stages. Anna describes the work as pleasurable and creative, involving a kind of deconstruction of nature into small parts that are then reassembled into entirely new forms. This creates a great closeness to the details. Bronze is noble, ages beautifully, and allows for thin but very strong structures. The fragile and delicate are immortalized, often with some unexpected change that opens up new possibilities and advances the creative process. A tulip can resemble a monster, a seed head adopts a humble stance, a ferret skull unfolds into a flower with a shimmer, a seashell nurtures another. The viewer is invited into the richness of details that unfold before an inquisitive gaze.

VANITAS IN OUR TIME

The theme ”Memento mori” or ”Remember your mortality” has intrigued people throughout history. The inspiration for the exhibition comes from the abundant flower and vanitas still life paintings of the 1600s, as well as the stricter Japanese flower arranging tradition, Ikebana. These traditions contrast with each other in several ways, but both share a harmony, a reverence for the plant material, and the impermanence can be part of the composition. Life and death—depicted in parallel.

Ultimately, the inspiration grows from wonder at the richness of nature. She wishes to open our eyes to the small things in nature, in everyday life. The bird singing as you rush to catch the bus. The weeds blooming between the cobblestones. This can help us shift perspectives, to see ourselves and our daily endeavors in new ways. That beauty brings strength and humility.