Inger Bergström | Aspects of Striped Fabrics and Other Works

Inger Bergström's artistic practice can be placed within an expanded textile field. She is using textile materials and methods but is constantly striving to redefine and question the boundaries of the genre. She has consistently been focusing on the three-dimensional and spatial, using textiles as building material where the materials' inherent references are present.

Bergström's works in the exhibition "Aspects of Striped Fabrics and Other Works" are more two-dimensional but retain an interest in space and volume. The works are characterized by a formal approach to the textile surface where the nature of the fabric – its color, pattern and texture – become factors that lead on to further artistic investigations.

The textile collages in the series "Aspect of a Striped Fabric" are characterized by visual disturbances that can bring thoughts to hypnotic images, op art and the British artist Bridget Riley. The measurable parameters of Bergström's working method interact with factors that cannot be controlled as easily – the simple and tangible is set against the complex. In the series "Perspective of a Glossy Fabric", the two-dimensional surface creates an illusion of spatiality. These works are made using a patchwork technique and transparently disclose both method and material. Bergström objectively creates her abstract, architectural and somewhat surrealistic compositions where traditional crafting methods are subjected to her formalist gaze.

Bergström's way of working can perhaps best be described in the words of her own and artist colleague Marie Holmgren: "The artistic endeavour can from certain aspects be described as open and uncertain. While we have a direction, we do not exactly know what the action will lead to. We make something, a material is taking shape in front of us and becomes a proposal. We proceed, we destroy or carry on with the work, regardless of whether it takes place in a thought process or an actual material one."