27/08/2026
Steinsland Berliner and Ylva Carlgren (Ylva Carlgren)
CHART Art Fair 2026 (CHART)
Booth 22
📍 Charlottenborg, Copenhagen.
On view until Sunday 30.08.
Pictured: Watercolour on paper in various sizes.
Contact us at [email protected] to receive detailed information on available works.
Ylva Carlgren is known for her masterfully controlled watercolour paintings, in which light and shadow unfold through subtle gradients and geometric abstractions. Following a series of international exhibitions, this presentation marks the artist’s first solo exhibition in Denmark.
Technique and materiality are at the core of Carlgren’s practice. Challenging the expected fluidity and bleeding quality of watercolour, she has instead developed a method of containment that relies on a deep understanding of the medium and its behaviour. Countless layers of colour are meticulously built up to create gradients across the paper, leaving no margin for error; once the paint is applied there is no going back without starting again. Embracing this self-imposed challenge, Carlgren explains the act of painting with watercolour as “a bit like playing chess”, where every move must be anticipated. What appears to the viewer as serene and immaculate is, in its making, a precarious process.
Ylva Carlgren (b. 1984, SE) lives and works in Stockholm. She received her MFA from Valand Academy (Gothenburg, SE) in 2012. She has exhibited extensively in Sweden, as well as in Germany, France, Japan and China. She is the recipient of several awards, including the Axel Theofron Sandberg’s Watercolor Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in 2025.
Photo: Jan Sondergaard
