Let’s Fika was a visual celebration of the tradition of fika, showcasing six Swedish illustrators, me included.
Fika is an essential part of life in Sweden. It’s traditionally about relaxed socialising, taking a break from our hectic lives to catch up with friends over a cup of coffee. The word ‘fika’ can serve both as a verb and a noun and most Swedes consider having coffee an important part of their culture.
I made a simplified Swedish version of Dante’s journey in three parts for the exhibition:
Café Levive – the realm of the living.
Café Grim fanlimbo – the realm between life and hell. The characters in this picture’s heavily inspired by and dedicated to a videogame from ’98 called Grim Fandango.
Café il Ferno – hell.
All three illustrations are connected with a staircase
This is the first images of a small series that illustrates how London (or any other city) becomes a chaotic dark inferno and turns its inhabitants into demon and devil like twisted creatures.
Each image has a different environment and this one is the pub
The print was exhibited for an art fair called “East Pop”
As part of the wonderful MMU collective I had the opportunity to once again exhibit something at Dalston Superstore. This time with a mural. Something I’ve done before as well for DSS, when they opened a few years earlier.
Again, the second time this year, (see ‘SapientNitro Mural‘) I introduce some colour to my wall painting.
The theme for the MMU’s collective show was ‘KINGDOM’
Relationship Out Loud is a wordplay of Laughing Out Loud. A way to change the meaning of the word ‘Relationship’ to make it a synonym with laughing. It’s a cynical but funny study of how we react in and around relationships with different scenarios around trying to find someone (both failing and succeeding), being with somebody(or somebodies) and breaking up with another. Mainly prints with a few hand-drawn pieces.
“Dalston Superstore hosts a new a solo exhibition by illustrator Martin Wollerstam entitled Relationship out loud. Having previously completed a mural for the downstairs dancefloor at Superstore, Martin has done various collaborations and projects in London and abroad including work for Selfridges & Co. and Spin Publicity.
Making observations that are humorous and succinct, his drawing and sketches here comment on the way people interact with each other, finding of course the more extreme and strange end of those situations particularly appealing. For his show at Superstore, Martin has created a new body of work especially for the space with its role as a meeting place as the starting point. Martin’s new work is inspired by the way people in relationships interact and the situations that often arise, from ‘courting’ to the first kiss to jealousy and cheating. His large-scale prints and drawings along with smaller works on paper will be hung at the Dalston Superstore through late June. For more information please contact art@dalstonsuperstore.com“
I had a exhibition in Madrid in a clothes boutique called Garcia Madrid. I was asked to make a mural and catch the spirit of the town so my good friend Ivan sent me some images of typical things for Madrid that I could work with. I was also asked to decorate the Spanish traditional botijos.
When I went home to my hometown, Sandviken, for some holidays, I was asked to put up an exhibition at the “LarsPalm” Gallery.
I called it “Efter solsken kommer regn”, (A direct translation would be “After sunshine there will be rain”). It’s a word twist of a Swedish saying, which I turned into a pessimistic meaning instead of the opposite. A little reminder that everything fun will eventually ran out and that reality will eventually catch up with you. That nothing lasts. It’s good to be prepared…
Here is some of the drawings I had for the exhibition. Worth to point out is that I didn’t have much time to finish my especially made drawings for the exhibition. Less then a week actually, and of top of that I also made a mural.
At the moment I don’t have any translations for the pictures. I’ll see if I write something down later.
The lovely Sketchbook Magazine asked me to do murals for their pop-up shop in Newburgh street in Carnaby, London. The shop was up for a month and they had workshops, seminars, sample sales, screenings and galleries. Each room had a theme decorated with murals of various illustrators. They assigned me with “the cupboard of curiosity”, a very suitable theme for me and my drawings.
Unfortunate I only had my phone’s camera available to document the mural and it doesn’t have any flash so the images are slightly blurred (Click on the images to enlarge)
They also asked me to drew frames on the wall for their illustration gallery upstairs
Christopher James, the man and the eye behind the party photography site we know what you did last night, put together a pop-up store for the launch of his online store. The pop-up store, called “This space”, was up for five days during the London Fashion on Beak street, Just around the corner of the famous Carnaby street.
During the day it was a showroom and a sample sale from a selection of talented and upcoming designers and at night it had fashion shows and party events.
And because I made some prints for his store, he asked me if i wanted to exhibit some of my work, which I did.
