STOCKHOLM.- The group exhibition SIGHTSEEING invites visitors into a space outside the mainstream, where Martin Jacobson brings together six artists whose work explores the realms of mysticism and mythology. The participating artists are Aleksandra Waliszewska, David Tibet, Richard Cartwright, Olle Wärnbäck, Niklas Nenzén and Hugo Lindblad.

The artists in the exhibition are, in various ways, situated outside the established norms of the contemporary art world. Richard Cartwright studied at Goldsmith’s College of Art in London but distanced himself early on from formal art education. He settled in Bristol in the 1980s and has since consistently created works shaped by his own visual logic. David Tibet, a name well known to many in the music world as the founder and member of the experimental music group CURRENT 93, has a deep interest in apocryphal and apocalyptic Biblical texts, which, in addition to music, finds expression through art, poetry and publishing. Another artist in the exhibition, Aleksandra Waliszewska, is firmly positioned within the contemporary art world but she relates her works to the Symbolists of the turn of the century and other old masters. We also encounter works by contemporary Swedish artists such as Olle Wärnbäck and Niklas Nenzén, both of whom allow their inner vision to guide the creative process behind their symbolically charged works. The exhibition also presents a work by Hugo Lindblad, who passed away in 1976, and whose surviving body of work—comprising images, texts and dream diaries—can be interpreted within the framework of Outsider Art.

A common thread running through the exhibition is that the works on display still seem to hold an enigma. They do not provide any clear answers or offer a definitive solution. They reflect psychological states, visions, dreams, mirror worlds and hallucinations. What may appear to be a seemingly introspective and detached view of the world is, in fact, an invitation to contemplate existence on a deeper level and open oneself up to alternative dimensions.

SPOTIFY LINK: exhibition playlist

ARTIST PRESENTATIONS

ALEKSANDRA WALISZEWSKA
Born 1976. Lives and works in Warsaw, Poland.

Waliszewska considers herself as a contemporary heir to the Symbolists. Her work is characterised by animism and sexuality, and is influenced by Baltic and Slavic myths. Her often dark and allegorical works are populated by women and hybrid creatures and explore emotions such as fear, desire, anxiety and death. She is a highly acclaimed figure on the international art scene and her works are held in numerous museum collections. With SIGHTSEEING, her work is being exhibited in Sweden for the first time.

A comprehensive exhibition of Waliszewska’s work and her relationship to the Symbolists was presented in 2022 in The Dark Arts: Aleksandra Waliszewska and the Symbolism from the East and North at the M. K. Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. The exhibition was later shown at the M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art in Kaunas, Lithuania. Since the mid-2000s, her work has frequently been shown in solo and group exhibitions internationally, and numerous catalogues have been published on her work.

RICHARD CARTWRIGHT
Born 1951. Lives and works in Bristol, Great Britain.

Cartwright studied at Goldsmith’s College of Art but soon turned his back on formal art education and decided to develop his own artistic language. Using pastel as his medium, he paints works that vibrate with a dim light, where each motif is characterised by an intense sense of colour and atmosphere. His works are poetic and contemplative, and for Cartwright, painting itself is a journey that reflects the elasticity and mystery of life. Cartwright creates his works in his combined home and studio in Bristol, and he only begins working after midnight. As he has described it, it is easy to be critical of one’s ideas during the day, but at night, when all distractions have faded and it is just him and the world, the courage to create the images he has visualised emerges.

DAVID TIBET
Born in 1960. Lives and works in Hastings, UK.
(Bio in his own words)

David Tibet is the creator of Hallucinatory Girl-Group CURRENT 93 aka C93. He has released 93,000 albums with and as C93.

His hobbies are translating texts from Coptic, Biblical Hebrew, and Akkadian, and collecting, and publishing, books by his heroes and heroines such as Count Stenbock, Phyllis Paul, and The Silent Twins. He is planning to rebuild Borley Rectory with the help of the decan demons previously ruled by King Solomon, who are now under David’s control.

He has a major exhibition of his artwork, and retrospective Channelling of all his recording and publishing works, at DOX Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague, which starts October 22, and runs for 5 months.

He lives in Hastings, England, with his partner Polka and their three cats Fairy, Gef!, and Voirrey. He and C93 are playing a concert in Stockholm in September, so perhaps he will see you there, in The Ecstatic Temple Of Shirley Temple herself.

OLLE WÄRNBÄCK
Born 1977. Lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden.

Olle Wärnbäck creates his paintings based on his experiences and the imaginary. Impressions from the outside world, music, nature, art and film become windows to inner worlds, and through painting he delves deeper into these places. These impressions are transformed and take on new forms in his work: a melody can become a stream, a plant from a thangka can sprout within the ruins of a European monastery, and a news photograph can take the form of a gently flowing river reflecting both the sky and the underworld.

His work has previously been exhibited at Galleri Arnstedt, Östra Karup; Molekyl Galleri, Malmö; Candyland/Flat Octopus, Stockholm; Hangmen Projects, Stockholm; and Galleri Riis, Stockholm.

NIKLAS NENZÉN
Born 1970. Lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden.

Through collage, painting and drawing, Niklas Nenzén follows in the footsteps of the Surrealists, and his work is imbued with poetic metaphors and visual rhymes. Nenzén has described that his works can be viewed as indeterminate symbols, autonomous objects or gifts of compensation for withholding useful information.

His work has previously been shown in exhibitions in Sweden, Serbia, the USA, the Czech Republic and France, including the group exhibition Merveilleuse Utopie at the Maison André Breton – Centre International du Surréalisme et de la Citoyenneté Mondiale in 2024. Nenzén obtained his PhD in 2025 from Uppsala University in Systematic Theology with a thesis entitled The Surrealist Mystery of Reading: Myths, Esotericism and Dialectics (Det surrealistiska läsmysteriet: myter, esoterism och dialektik).

HUGO LINDBLAD
1885 – 1976, Sweden.

Hugo Lindblad has become known to posterity for the images, texts and dream journals he left behind. Lindblad was a lithographer by profession, but spent most of his life in psychiatric hospitals, and his work can today be interpreted within the context of Outsider Art. Over the years, he recorded his dreams, theological reflections and accounts of spiritual visions in dream journals. The purpose of these was to provide researchers with an insight into the reality of a person with schizophrenia, but Lindblad also related his experiences to mystics such as the catholic saint Bridget of Sweden and Emanuel Swedenborg. Some of the material that Lindblad left behind upon his death can now be found at the Hagströmer Library, the Regional Archives and the Nationalmuseum’s archives.