Lotta’s Trees
by Lotta Olsson
June 6th – July 27th, 2014
LOTTAS TREES is an exhibition of illustrated work-on-paper by Swedish artist Lotta Olsson. Raised in the south of Sweden, surrounded by forest and nature in a village near a National Park, and being the daughter of a forest ranger, Lotta Olsson has a proclivity toward the sights, sounds, and touch of the natural habitat. Trees, as well as flora and fauna, are her favored forms of representation. Diligently collecting and cataloging nature’s inventory, she has assembled a detailed digital herbarium of leaves, branches, roots, and flowers, which become component elements in her compositions. Merging illustration with these images allows for imagination to participate in the dialogue of parts. The real, yet imagined, are one and the same in her work.
As sources for inspiration, Lotta Olsson’s Interest in the history of old sayings, and the writings and teachings of an old wise forest ranger, Gunnar Asplund, engages her with more connections to the natural world. Equally, a day out in the woods, finding a loose berry branch or leaf, provides a wealth of possibility for her imagination.
Lotta Olsson has an undergraduate degree in Graphic Design from Göteborg Universitet, and an MFA in Graphic Design and illustration from KONSTFACK University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Stockholm. Her artwork has been exhibited in Sweden and Italy, at the Affordable Art Fair in London, and now is being introduced to the United States by Gurari Collections.
As a footnote, I had been in Sweden, summer of 2013, and chanced upon Lotta’s artwork. I was immediately struck with the simple, sparse, almost nature’s anatomy in these illustrations. It provided an artist’s visual expression to my time in Sweden’s countryside. Similarly, I thought her work to be a connection to Carl Linnaeus, Sweden’s great 18th century botanist, father of modern taxonomy, and modern ecology. There is a delicate wholesomeness to Lotta Olsson’s artwork as she merges collected photographic images of nature with illustration in creating these imaginative works of art.
