Bio
Therese Livonne (b. 1980) is a multidisciplinary artist born and based in Sweden, whose practice involves walking, foraging, and creating handmade pigments from natural materials, with a focus on encaustic painting, printmaking and sculpture.
She has a background in tailoring, patternmaking, and fashion and is currently pursuing a BA (Hons) in Painting at the Open College of the Arts (part time).
Her work has been exhibited in Sweden and internationally, and she has received several scholarships, including a recent residency in Sweden.
My work is grounded in material process and explores themes of transformation, alchemy and the connection to the natural world through pigment making and encaustic paint. Using both traditional and contemporary extraction methods, I create pigments from raw materials foraged from the landscape or grown in my pigment garden. This process allows me to uncover the beauty of the natural world and connect with the landscapes I walk in. Making my own pigments requires time and care, and working with them in encaustic means embracing change, imperfection and unpredictability.
Through layered abstract paintings on wood panel and encaustic monotypes, I explore the possibilities and limitations of my materials, where each work is shaped by both control and chance. I see my work as a collaboration with the materials, an ongoing conversation between movement and stillness, the present and the past and the landscapes from which the pigments are born.Fire and heat shape both the natural landscape and my creative practice, essential elements in both pigment making and encaustic painting. When painting, once the work is removed from the heat, the fluid wax almost instantly solidifies, capturing a final moment of movement. What remains is a visual trace of heat, gravity and material interactions, revealing organic rhythms and flowing shapes. These works do not depict real places, but instead emerge from them, through colour, process and the alchemy of natural materials.
Much of my work incorporates methods and materials that are highly tactile and time laborious, which forces me to slow down and accept a slower pace in my creative process. This approach to art making is something I fully embrace as a much needed antidote against the fast pace of our modern life. I invite you to join me in embracing a slower pace, and discover the unique beauty of natural materials and the marvels of the natural world that is reflected in my work.