ABOUT Sonja

Seeking to create works that feels joyful, pure and “raw”

“Sonja’s work is rooted in a deep love of colour, and a deep drive to explore colour relationships, and create works that radiate joyfulness and life. With the use of bold colours, abstract shapes and gestural brush strokes, she intentionally focuses on the expression of joy, simplicity and a sense of aliveness. For the viewer, she wants her work to feel joyful, pure and “raw” - almost like a sigh of relief.”

Sonja Dahlgren (b 1973) is a contemporary abstract painter based in Gothenburg, Sweden.

THE “WHY”

Sonja’s work is rooted in a deep love of colour, and she intentionally focuses on the expression of joy, simplicity and a sense of aliveness. Sonja is primarily interested in colour relationships, and how visual structure can generate emotional response, more precisely how joy and aliveness can be constructed within a composition, through the use of bold colours, abstract shapes and gestural brush strokes. For the viewer, she wants her work to feel joyful, pure and “raw” - almost like a sigh of relief.

THE creative process

Sonja’s approach to painting are equal parts deliberate and intuitive, moving between structure and spontaneity to create rhythm, aliveness and visual momentum. She likes to work with a loose idea, often starting out with sketches, and/or predetermined colour combinations, always going for the colours that make her own heart sing - hoping to convey the same feeling in the viewer. Her preferred medium is acrylic paint, but she occasionally uses gouache, oil pastels, wax pencils, oil and oil sticks. Sonja loves working with paper, especially for its immediacy, and the way it contributes to give an artwork the feel of “rawness”, fragility and impermanence, and she puts a lot of effort into creating surfaces on canvas that mimic paper. Experimentation is an essential part of her process, and she stays open to coincidences and surprises.

Sonja finds most of her visual references and inspiration in the little things she surrounds herself with, such as; nature, the marina near her home, flowers in her garden, art history, travels, fashion and architecture. Sonja’s work is informed by fauvism, abstract expressionism and the colour field painting movement, and the work of e.g. Henri Matisse, Helen Frankenthaler and Ellsworth Kelly, as well as contemporary artists like e.g. Michael McGregor and Yvonne Robert.

THE Background

Before committing fully to painting, Sonja’s professional journey spanned several creative and human-centred fields. Her education includes a bachelor of early childhood education, a masters degree in psychology and several university courses in photography, visual communication and graphic design. She began her career as an early years teacher (including five years in China, which affected her deeply), later worked as a lifestyle photographer and food stylist, and then practiced as a couple’s therapist. Over time, her lifelong engagement with creativity and visual expression led her to focus seriously on fine art, and develop a studio practice grounded in her love of colour.