Pearl Brunings

Lives and works in Unnaryd, Sweden

Artist statement

My work is rooted in landscape, memory and ancestry. I create imagined landscapes that carry a sense of mystery and unseen presence. Throughout human history, landscapes have been seen as mystical places, inhabited by spirits and deities. Through my work, I seek to bring something of that ancestral way of seeing into our contemporary relationship with landscape. Migration is inseparable from my ancestry. I come from ancestral lines rooted in widely separated parts of the world, shaped by migrations that ultimately brought them together in Suriname. My own existence is part of that history of movement. Since moving from Suriname to Sweden, migration has also become part of my lived experience, adding another layer to my relationship with landscape: how I relate to a place that is new to me while carrying where I come from. This has led to my ongoing Thresholds series, in which I paint imagined landscapes on found windows from Swedish homes. Their weathered surfaces and traces of use remain visible, bringing an existing history into the work. The windows create a physical connection to the landscape I now inhabit. As Thresholds develops, I am exploring how the works can move beyond the gallery and into the landscape itself, allowing the surrounding environment to become part of the work. Across my practice, I seek to slow the act of looking, allowing space for the landscape to reveal its quiet power and its magic.

Artwork