Swedish artist Gunnel Gyllenhoff shows her work at Lorton Arts Center in Lorton, Va.

Posted by Susanna at 3:37 AM, Jul 5, 2009 (Comments)

Category: Design & Art

Swedish artist Gunnel Gyllenhoff is showing her work at Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton, Va.

SWEDISH ARTIST Gunnel Gyllenhoff has two of her paintings in an exhibition at the Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton, Va., in suburban Washington, D.C. A lifelong artist, she paints abstract compositions that have powerful color, airy inspiration and warm inviting complexity.

"I AM studio painter, I don't go out and paint, and I don't want to literally tell a story," she says. "It comes from inside, and 'bubbles over.' It is just feelings and emotions."

SHE ADDS, "For my so called 'Poured Paintings' I use fluid acrylic paints. I mix 3-4 colors ahead of time for each application, dilute with some water and then I pour the paint on to a very smooth surface like Yupo paper. The colors run into each other and create their own combinations and forms. It is a very immediate way of painting, very organic and is to me a process of discovery. It does however requier strong guidance and control."

"NOTHING MADE by man can exceed the beauty of nature"

AFTER HIGH SCHOOL she became a map maker in Malmö, Sweden, where she also
started her art education. She then moved to the United States. While working as a cartographer in New York she applied and was accepted at Cooper Union College in Greenwich Village in New York City. By being accepted there students do not have to pay tuition -- a form of scholarship. 

GUNNEL SAYS that her artistic talent came from her father, Nils Torling. "My father was a Swedish engineer and businessman, but was also very artistic, painted and did drawings and wood carvings."
In New York, she met a Swede, got married, had two children, a daughter and a son, and moved to Chicago and Rockford, Ill., where the family spent ten years before moving to the Washington area.

"ROCKFORD WAS A VERY Swedish town, with its ancestry and feeling for Sweden. You were treated as a royalty there." But she says she likes Washington because it "feels closer to Europe and is very international."

"I PAINTED WHEN the children were young, in fact I have painted during my entire lifetime. For a long time I was particularly interested in doing charcoal drawings." Ms. Gyllenhoff .received an award from an international publication called Prize Winning Graphics (by Margaret Harold) for the charcoal drawing she did of her daughter Cecilia. She also did charcoal portraits of the children of the Swedish embassy staff. 

  Artist Gunnel Gyllenhoff next to her artwork "Troll Forest"

FOR SEVERAL YEARS Ms. Gyllenhoff combined her artistic work with her own travel agency, Scandia World Travel. This gave her an opportunity to see much of the world, and she visited Tibet, China, Indonesia, Turkey and South America (for example Peru, Ecuador and the Galapagos islands), among other places. "I am seeking authenticity," she says.

Artwork by Swedish artist Gunnel Gyllenhoff

MS. GYLLENHOFF is exhibiting at the Art League Gallery of the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, Va., where she has received many awards, at the Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton, Va., and she had a one person painting exhibition at the Watergate Gallery in Washington D.C. Her painting 'Wings' was picked by a curator at the famous Hirshhorn Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. for the biannual exhibition called "Strictly Painting"at Emerson Gallery in McLean, Va.

  This artwork, "Wings," was picked by the curator at famous Hirshhorn Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., for an exhibition at the Emerson Gallery in McLean, Virginia.

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