Sigrid Holmwood
1857 - Paintings

16 January - 23 February 2008

Annely Juda Fine Art are proud to announce Sigrid Holmwood’s first solo exhibition of new paintings made in 2007 as a result of travels in Sweden.

Holmwood’s sumptuous, luminous paintings of pastoral landscapes, rural scenes and Swedish peasants belie their complex and intriguing conception. Holmwood makes studies and paintings of actual happenings, people re-enacting the lives and practices of rural peasants and farmers, from open-air museums in Sweden to Tudor re-enactment societies in Britain, Holmwood herself crossing from observer to participant.

Sigrid Holmwood is taking part in the scenes she is representing; using authentic pigments she takes on the mantle of peasant painter demonstrating traditional painting methods. Back in the studio contemporary paints are mixed with traditional pigments and mediums; egg tempera, sour milk, pine resin and birch leaves.

The painting process is equally as important to Holmwood as the subject matter and this shows in the physical appearance of the paintings; they have a lustre and depth that comes from careful attention to pigment and glazing, authentic 18th and 19th century pigments are ground and mixed overlaying electric fluorescent colours, producing pastoral scenes that hum with a 21st century electricity; we look again at the subjects as all may not be as it seems.