Frejgatan 57, 13 49 Stockholm, tel: 08-31 85 06, Öppet tis-fre kl 13-17, lör-sön kl 13-16
GABRIELLA
HAGELBERG-LEGILLON
or Gala for short, has grown up in Gothenburg. Gala has been painting for
her entire life and has lived and worked in many different countries. Travelling
has always been as natural a part of her life as art. She spent her first
years abroad.
Professionally, Gala engaged herself in theatre after having finished
school in Gothenburg. During five years she worked behind the stage with costumes
and stage design, as well as on the stage as an actress in performances with
independent theatre groups in Stockholm. Her interest in theatre also made
her discover Asian theatre on several journeys to Asia.
in 1981 Gala went to Paris where she entered Stage Design at the
Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. Her interest
in art was further stimulated, which led her to study oil painting at the
same school. During this period the Chinese painter, and former teacher at
her school, Zao Wu Ki, made a deep impression on her. She started to do large-scale
paintings, a natural consequence of her experience in stage design in the
theatre room - huge paintings which gave the artist and the spectator a feeling
of entering the works and getting a physical relation to it.
gala met her French husband and stayed in Paris. However, in spite
of the enormous cultural choice in this metropole, it was mainly from nature
that she got her inspiration for painting, especially from the Swedish nature,
through her childhood in the archipelago of Gothenburg, where she returns
every summer.
in 1988, Gala and her family left Europe for a four year stay
in Seoul in South Korea, where her husband was placed on one of his first
jobs abroad. After having given birth to their first daughter Gala continued
tiredlessly to paint, which resulted in many exhibitions, among others at
the French Institute in Seoul, as well as a separate exhibition where she
presented a serie of triptychs, more than 30 meters long, at the Hilton Gallery.
The exhibition was bought by a restaurant in Seoul where it afterwards became
a part of their permanent decoration. The contrast between the swarming city
life in Seoul and the calmness of the powerful mountains with their buddhist
monasteries, discovered by travelling across the country, made the inspiration
of the nature even more vigorous.
After South Korea, the family moved to Milan in Italy, where they
lived for five years and their other daughter was born. Aterwards they moved
to Ireland, for another stay abroad of five years before returning to Paris,
where Gala lives with her family since 2001.
Gala has during the years developed her own language of colours
and form and has exhibited in lots of countries all over the world. She's
in contact and collaborates with a lot of other Swedish artists in France
and other countries. She's also interested in literature and collaborates
since a few years with the Swedish author Birgitta Lindqvist, who also lives
in Paris. From Birgitta Lindqvist's collection of short stories "The
Tango cavalier" (Tangokavaljeren), they organized in October 2007, with
10 other Swedish female artists an exhibition at the Swedish House of La Cité
Internationale (Studentlägenheter I Paris, student camp of Cité
Universitare?), "La femme, le temps et la mémoire".
Technique
Gala paints principally in oil on canvas but also in oil pastel and oil on
paper. In the exhibition "Re-view", she presents brand new paintings
made by an experimental technique that she has developed in the last years.
On most of the pictures figures Mikaela, her constant model for twenty years.
It was in 2005 that Gala started to experiment with old photo series and digital
photos. In her technique she starts by processing the digital photo on the
computer, the she prints it on a special paper, mostly a thick water-colour
paper, and after that it is pasted on canvas. Then Gala works with a mixed
technique, consisting of layers of aquarelle, acrylic and oil on the pasted
photo. The pictures become unique and are done in small series and in different
sizes.
galalegillon@hotmail.com
www.gala-h-legillon.com