PRINTMAKING – HELMTRUD NYSTRÖM

PRESS RELEASE

Helmtrud Nyström was born in 1939 in Hannover, but she currently resides and works in Sweden, where she originally moved in 1961 with the intention of studying garden art and becoming a landscape architect. Her knowledge of botany and the grouping of plants in her works hint at this background.

Nyström creates her multi-colored prints using three different plates, often combining soft ground with aquatint techniques. Her color palette is consistently built around variations of blue, red, and yellow. The base “supporting image” is often rendered in blue. She always works directly and intuitively, without sketches or models, allowing the artwork to emerge during the etching process itself. Her pieces evoke a captivating reality reminiscent of a fairytale world, rich in poetic strength. Frequently, her themes touch on ecology and environmental conservation, characterized by a playful naïveté.

Nyström studied painting at the Forum School of Art in Malmö from 1963 to 1967, but later found her way to Bertil Lundgren’s school of printmaking, graduating in 1972. Since 1968, she has participated in numerous international print exhibitions and biennales, including in Florence, Krakow, Bradford, Buenos Aires, Grenchen, Gothenburg, Stockholm, Heidelberg, Frechen, and Jyväskylä. In addition to the Graphica Creativa ’81 exhibition prize, she won First Prize at the 5th Frechen Print Biennale in 1978.

“In Swedish art circles — and perhaps even on a broader scale — Helmtrud Nyström is a flourishing and highly unique artist. She is a rare bird,” writes Swedish printmaker Svenrobert Lundqvist in Taide magazine, issue 4/1982.

The exhibition has been previously showcased at the Finnish Printmakers’ Gallery in Helsinki and the Alvar Aalto Museum in Jyväskylä.

Translated with ChatGPT