At the beginning of the month, Spoke Art in San Francisco introduced new works from Stella Im Hultberg (interviewed) in her first solo in four years. Entitled Stranger, the very floral new body of work encompassed many different mediums including oil paintings, loosely rendered watercolor, india ink sketches, as well as sculpture. The fresh imagery is inspired by the changes in her life, with being a new parent being the most obvious.
She further explains – “There was a lot of ‘heaviness of love’ that I felt since becoming a parent, a very heavy-feeling blessing. I’m sure many parents would agree. Maybe overabundance of flowers are a bit related to that – delicate flowers in heaps can become very heavy and hard to bear. Even the most beautiful things that can make it hard to breathe for you. But things happen in life, not just children, that can make you change before you realize. And suddenly you realize that you’re different. You see that you’re still you, but somehow you aren’t you anymore – you’re a stranger to yourself.”
Photo credit: Shaun Roberts.
Discuss this show here. Discuss Stella Im Hultberg here.
