Liva Isakson Lundin

Liva Isakson Lundin creates otherworldly installations by bringing together contrasting materials in fresh and unforeseen ways. In her 2016 work Inwards, for example, gigantic coils of strip steel are barely confined within a fine membrane of stretched latex, doubled and contorted into intriguing forms; in Hold Sway (2018) ribbons of strip steel loop and sashay through the air with the delicacy of silk yet the numerous taut ropes holding the metal in place testify to its lethal potency were it to snap free. In these elegant material confrontations it is often hard to tell which element is supporting which. Her expansive use of space animates the room, giving the impression of kinetic propulsion, although the works are in fact static. Through extensive experimentation, Lundin wrestles with the problems posed by different materials and eventually achieves a poetic harmony between tension, weight and balance. Like Eva Hesse before her, Lundin’s sculptures draw parallels with Minimalism in their sparse, rhythmic repetitions and organic forms, yet their expressive, bodily aspect eschews the emotional detachment of much Minimalist art. 

Liva Isakson Lundin (b. 1990) holds an MFA from the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. Her work has been exhibited frequently in Sweden, there amongst Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm, the Aguéli Museum, Sala, Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts, Stockholm, Ahlbergshallen, Östersund. She has completed several public commissions, including a permanent installation for the city theatre in Gothenburg, a sculptural commission for the main square in Eslöv. This autumn, Liva Isakson Lundin and Adéle Essle Zeiss’s sculpture Standing Waves was inagurated as the memorial sculpture of Tim “Avicii” Bergling in Humlegården, Stockholm. In 2021 she did a residency at The New York Artist Residency and Studios (NARS) Foundation. She is represented in the collections of Moderna Museet in Stockholm amongst others. She lives and works in New York, US.