Project 44
Unbelonging - Elin Lindecranzt
May 9th - June 6th, opening reception on Friday, May 5th from 19h
Whilst Elin Lindecrantz is mostly known as a painter, for her exhibition Unbelonging at Tangent Projects gallery, she has chosen to step outside of her known practice. Instead of focusing solely on painting, she has put together a show that brings together different aspects of her creative practice.
Embracing the experimental approach of Tangent Projects, Elin will create an installation that includes photography, textiles, a book, a computer game, and of course, painting. While seemingly eclectic, there is a strong underlying theme running through these works that reflects on the commonality of the lived experiences of women. For Elin, this exhibition is both a personal exploration of the roles she feels have been assigned to her and a questioning of her own agency and narrative.
In doing so, she highlights that roles - like gender - are not fixed but constructed, or, as Judith Butler asserts, performed; yet negotiable and continually reshaped.
Over the past year, Elin has been writing a book, titled The Woman I Wanted to Become, using it as a space to unravel her thoughts and expectations of life. More than just a companion piece, working on the texts and drawings for the book have fed into the exhibition’s narrative and shaped its visual and experiential elements.
What may at first appear as an irreverent take on societal roles is, at its heart, a way of processing the many false promises and disappointments. With wit and playfulness, Elin confronts these constructed ideals. A low-key romantic, the deceits hit her hard, but rather than succumbing to disillusionment, she turns them into snack-sized anecdotes filled with dark humour.
Nostalgia plays a pivotal role in the installation, with elements of kitsch evoking a longing for a time when things seemed simpler. As a child, Elin embraced the roles she was led to believe she would one day fulfill - the girly girl, the wife, the mother. There was a sense of glamour to it all: the allure of make-up and high heels, the glossy pages of gossip magazines, the promise of a life that was both exciting and predetermined.
By presenting a selection of works that move beyond the security of her established practice - after all, she could have more easily produced a purely painting-based exhibition on the same themes - Elin actively engages in a form of unbelonging. In playfully dismantling the roles she has attempted to fit into over the years, she affirms a conscious refusal to conform. As Deborah Levy writes, "Sometimes we want to unbelong as much as we want to belong."
Tsering Frykman-Glen
Elin Lindecrantz is a Swedish-born painter who has been based in Barcelona since 2015. Through her use of painted media, she brings to life her observations of everyday occurrences, with light and space serving as the central protagonists in her work.
Since 2019, she has been an active member of Tangent Projects independent art space and studio community. In 2022, Elin was selected for an artist residency at PADA Studios near Lisbon as part of their collaborative programme with Turps Banana painting magazine in London.
Elin's first solo exhibition in Barcelona, On Waiting and Living (September 2023), followed several group shows, including Art Garage, Raima (Barcelona, 2023), Moneymaking at Tangent Projects (Barcelona, 2020), and The Final Bang at Estudio Nomada (Barcelona, 2019).
In October 2023, she was awarded a one-month residency at Duplex Air in Lisbon, and in March 2024, she participated in a residency at Hangar in the same city.