Pernilla Iggstrom’s paintings are the result of a process of investigation into her personal cultural heritage – a journey which explores the effect on her own identity of being born into one culture, then subsequently being adopted into another very different one thousands of miles away.
Mainly using source materials derived from her personal archive of family albums and her own photos of the environment, she explores both actual and imagined places where the relationships between the past and the present, the interior and the exterior, and the physical and the psychological are key.
The narrative is collaged straight onto the surface step by step, using a variety of mediums and tools to convey a thought, a message or a memory. Pernilla might use images from her own archive of family photos as a starting point but the aim is to present something more universally accessible.
Pernilla’s personal story is of course core as it motivates her investigations into notions of identity in the first place, but there are also far reaching aspects to what she is saying that she wants to address. She hopes that her art will inspire the viewer to reflect on his or her own cultural heritage, increase an interest and awareness about him or herself and others and thereby break down stereotypical impressions and pre-conceived barriers.