The Graduates of 2026
- C-print
- 23 hours ago
- 14 min read
Updated: 1 hour ago
Since 2013 (13 years and counting!), C-print has turned unprecedented focus on artists emerging out of art schools. It's grad show season, so coverage is due. When team C-print swings by, you will know. We checked in with a number of spring graduates from Swedish art schools. Keep an eye out for them and some of their peers.
Filippa Friberg, BFA, Konstfack, Stockholm
C-P: Hi Filippa, congratulations on your upcoming graduation from the BFA program at Konstfack!
I saw your degree show last year and was very impressed by your paintings. What are some of the ideas that inform your work?
F.F: I started the process last summer with an urge to explore painting as well as the potential of abstraction. I felt that I wanted to find new ways to relate to painting and so I started with a method centering the act of painting and the” doing”, rather than having any specific concept in mind. It eventually started to revolve around a home environment, using fragments of fictive furniture and painterly gestures in different ways to create visual narratives. I wanted to go beyond my current knowledge and allow my process to grow in an intuitive way, trying not to get stuck in things like result or meaning. As I painted it started to feel like what I really was looking for is the point of where something starts to mean something, and where it loses its meaning. And how different elements that make a painting, such as choice of color, layering, motifs, rhythm and hierarchy of things, can be used to capture knowledge that is embodied, in a sense. The in-betweenness that stems from the absence and the presence of these gestures became important to me as I felt it was unexplored territory in itself.
C-P: Since then, you’ve presented a solo exhibition at Nevven in Gothenburg. What was that experience like for you?
F.F: Yes, it was a really special experience and I am grateful for the opportunity. It definitely felt like a big step to have my first solo show in that kind of setting, and it was a bit nerve wracking of course, especially in the final term of the bachelor, which is I think still a very formative stage of any artistic process. I think I had quite a different timeline in my head where being an art student would be more separate from the rest of the art world. But as we got in contact with each other it felt right, and given Nevven’s history of being an artist-run galley I felt mostly honored and intrigued by the collaboration.
C-P: What has been your approach to the upcoming spring degree show? Will you be presenting existing works from the solo exhibition, or an entirely new body of work?
F.F: I will show three new works that I made this spring. They are part of a process that I think are both a reaction to this last year, and also a summation of this process I had last fall. I decided to call them” the drummer”, as I imagine it's similar to the painter in front of the stretched canvas, trying to compose something, equally navigating presence (drumming) and absence (the pauses).
C-P: Finally, what’s coming up for you later this year?
F.F: At the end of August I will show one work through Nevven at CHART Art Fair in Copenhagen.
I'm also starting my MFA at Konstfack, and I'm excited to have some time to paint and see what the next step is. Koshik Zaman
Behzad Dehno, MFA, Royal Institute of Art (KKH), Stockholm
C-P: Hi Behzad! I had the pleasure of seeing Lucky 7 at Galleri Mejan, a conceptually driven and, I might add, very accomplished exhibition that extended well beyond the gallery space. For those who might not have seen it, could you share some of the ideas that informed the project?
B.D: On one of Galleri Mejan’s white walls, seven monochrome shaped-canvas paintings hang in a row, each in the form of a four-leaf clover and painted white. In the otherwise white space, a green stand colors the room. On it, scratch cards are lined up. Like a photograph, they refer back to the vernissage performance Piyangocu, performed by Pontus Gårdinger. Piyangocu, Turkish for street lottery vendor, was a role Gårdinger assumed during the vernissage from behind the stand.
Outside the gallery, a green neon sign, also in the shape of a four-leaf clover, is attached to a lamppost. The sign lights up to indicate that scratch cards are available. This is also the case at Rådhuset metro station, where an identical sign is attached to the façade of the kiosk Kungsklippan Tobak.
Seven winning scratch cards are in circulation, with winning being the only way to acquire the paintings.
C-P: Before enrolling at the Royal Institute of Art, you were, among other places, primarily based in Geneva, where you also studied. Now that your Master’s is coming to an end, how do you reflect on your time at the institute?
B.D: What drew me to the Royal Institute of Art was its fluid, agency-based pedagogical approach. Here, and within the Swedish context, I found the right milieu to focus on how art in public space can be questioned and rethought, which also surfaces in certain aspects of Lucky 7, for example, how a local kiosk becomes an integrated part of an artwork.
This milieu exists in large part thanks to Vera Nilsson and Siri Derkert, and the ways in which they have influenced what is now an elaborate infrastructure for public art in Stockholm and across Sweden. In my future work with public art, however, I wish to continue this tradition in line with our contemporaneity. My first experiment in this direction took place in 2024, when I initiated a collective exhibition and artwork titled Tomorrow’s Truth at the Nordic Library in Athens, where all participating artists contributed works that were hidden within the building.
Commuting to the Royal Institute of Art familiarized me with Ulrik Samuelson’s public artwork at Kungsträdgården metro station. I hold this place dear, and to this day I continue to discover new details within this historically referential and mysterious underground garden. It also stands not only as a reminder of the importance of public art, but as an indicator of a tradition that has been weakened.
To answer your question, the Royal Institute of Art is a unique place, historically and today. It represents a perspective that values and nurtures the artist. Fewer and fewer art education institutions in Europe operate in this way, that is, adhering to the notion of "fri konst" (German: Freie Kunst). Art education, by its nature, creates highly complex institutions, which should, and always will, be criticized, as should the influence of decision-makers. I find that the latter has weakened the Royal Institute of Art over the years, much as it has the public art tradition as well.
C-P: With the upcoming MFA degree exhibition at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, what considerations have shaped how you present the work within a group context and a new spatial setting?
B.D: The presentation of my artworks is most often a conceptually integrated part of the work itself. In my work This Way, Paris (2024), shaped-canvas paintings formed as arrows seem to float in the air. When hung, the paintings follow two instructions in order to be activated: they must point toward Paris, and they must not be hung within Greater Paris.
In the case of showing Lucky 7 at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, the paintings are to be presented in a row, as they were at Galleri Mejan. This is in order to emphasise the paintings’ activation as prizes by referring to the image of a row of prizes on a shelf. The presentation is therefore partially predefined; however, there is scope for adaptation to a given situation or exhibition, and even more so in dialogue with the works of my artistic colleagues. Koshik Zaman
Emilio Marroquin, BFA, Malmö Art Academy
C-P: Tell us a bit about what you will be presenting as part of the Malmö Art Academy BFA Exam Exhibition, which continues until May 23, and concurrently in the Annual Exhibition, which includes solo format and studio settings, open until May 17. How do you hope these two presentations will complement each other?
E.M: In the upstairs gallery, I am showing two drawings. The first one, REAL LIFE BANKSYY, is a mixed-media abstraction of a horseshoe. A thick charcoal layer at the top transitions toward almost invisibly light graphite values at the bottom. The second, tiny drawing, Grafishes Kabinett, depicts a peanut and hangs really low. Its title refers to a type of 16th- and 17th-century showroom for works on paper, like a specialized cabinet of curiosities. Both drawings have bright, shiny, Ferrari-red frames.
In the downstairs gallery, I am showing an untitled mural made using a custom-ordered ink stamp. It is something I’m testing out for the first time, actually. I spent two days sanding one wall on the central column in the gallery to make it totally smooth, then I stamped all over it. I wanted to evoke something neurotic and rapturous with it. In the Annual Exhibition, I am showing a single graphite drawing, Musically, depicting a playground spring-seat bouncing back and forth. The frame is mounted backwards, exposing nuts and bolts that would normally face the wall.
I think the drawings in the BFA show, especially REAL LIFE BANKSYY, build on things that happen in Musically: a motif of an image melting onto the paper, its positioning on the paper slightly awkward, its framing offbeat. These are taken one step further in the BFA exhibition. The stamped mural is antithetical to the drawings altogether. It is impulsive, loud, and automated, while the drawings are slow, quiet, and focused.
C-P: Can you share a bit more with us about how and why your work brings these two things into dialogue, one being an almost classical approach to drawing and representation, the other being these conceptual elements and approaches?
E.M: I studied classical drawing in Rome as a teenager, so the academic approach became solidified quite early on. But when one spends so much time perfecting a result, it tends to feel very delicate, and I get the impulse to disrupt that delicacy, at least on a visual level. For now, that impulse latches onto the frame. It probably also comes from a place of questioning the convention that the drawing itself is what’s “important,” while the frame has to prop up and underpin that importance while remaining in the background.
Instead, I find it more exciting to think of the drawing and the frame as adversaries or, metaphorically speaking, as colleagues with an ambivalent professional relationship. I view those aspects of my works in terms of argument and counterargument, like: “How can I put the integrity of this drawing, the formality of it, the history of it, into question in some antagonistic, but always playful, way?”
C-P: I understand you attended Städelschule in Frankfurt through Erasmus+ during the second year of your BFA, and will complete your education there in 2028. What do you anticipate will be most helpful from your time in Malmö? What do you see on the horizon?
E.M: Malmö as a school is quite theoretical, which has given me access to fantastic, weird, semi-obscure material that I just wouldn’t have found or read on my own. The people here read a lot, and we talk about what we’ve read with each other and learn exponentially more through those conversations. Also, being pushed to write a bachelor’s thesis has been very generative in establishing what exactly it is that I think about things, and in having to really go in-depth and corroborate those viewpoints.
Other than that, I leave with countless conversations with schoolmates and professors that have really shaped how I think. I had a studio visit with my professor, Fredrik Værslev, last year, and I showed him recent work I had done. I recall him saying, “I think you need to push it further, although I have no idea how, or to what end, but I think you can and you should.” Then he drew a thick graphite line down a sheet of paper and said, “This is drawing.” After that, he demonstratively flipped the pencil around and dragged its butt end against the paper, leaving a weird, indented skid mark. Then he said, “But this is also drawing.”
It was a bit funny, and probably the single most important studio visit I’ve had, because something really clicked then. You know, this attitude of constantly challenging the stability of what you’re doing, the conventions of it. I think that will be the main quest going forward: moving further towards abstraction in the objects I draw, and also experimenting more with the tools I use to draw.
Other than that, I plan to get the wheels turning with my practice of art criticism. My first piece of writing was just published in Frieze, which is really exciting. Hopefully, I’ll go further down that rabbit hole. I am also looking forward to getting some new games for my Game Boy soon.
Zachary Whittenburg
Isak Uitto, BFA, HDK-Valand Academy of Art and Design, Gothenburg
C-P: I find it interesting that you more specifically identify yourself as a still life photographer, when many lens-based artists shy away from, or choose against, calling themselves anything less than simply visual artists. What are your thoughts?
I.U: Most of my role models are still life photographers. When I say that I am one of them, I want to believe that I give the viewer an understanding of how I position myself as an artist. At the same time, while I strongly identify with that tradition, I would be lying if I said that I am solely a still life photographer. Naturally, I do other things that do not fit within that framework. But still life is my point of departure and constant source of inspiration.
C-P: The notions of death, decay, and the impermanence of all things seem to inform several of your projects. What is your most recent artistic exploration along these lines?
I.U: Ever since my grandmother passed away, my art has, in one way or another, spoken about death. In my latest work, I Was Born with a Happy Heart, which is currently being exhibited on the third floor as part of the graduation exhibition at HDK-Valand, I attempt to reinvent, reuse, and reinterpret what is, and what could be, a vanitas motif. Through objects that in various ways speak of transience, death, and decay, my intention was to try to understand whether I might find acceptance in the face of the end. I see the work somewhat as a summary of my three years at the school, though not necessarily as an ending, despite the subject matter.
C-P: Apropos of labels, Neo Gothic strikes me as a very fitting one, and I would place you within that artistic genre, one that is not always vocalized but which definitely has had a resurgence in recent years. In my mind, last year was definitely the year of Neo Goth and when its comeback culminated. Who might be artists, within or outside contemporary art, that have interested you and helped shape your practice?
I.U: I have never really thought about which movement I belong to, apart from the still life genre. I understand what you mean by Neo Gothic, and I accept it. Rather than feeling connected to a specific movement, I feel drawn to still life as a method. To me, there is a clear inherent aspect of death within still life, something that resonates well with my areas of interest, gothic or otherwise.
I do not know how specific I need to be when it comes to individual artists, but what I can say is that I draw inspiration both from my immediate surroundings, fellow students, colleagues, teachers, friends, family, and from older artists. Lately, I have been looking at a great deal of photography from the interwar period, both European and American. Music is also very important to me.
C-P: What are you presenting for the degree exhibition at Valand, and what is coming up next for you?
I.U: I am convinced that I will continue searching for answers to questions surrounding death and how I am meant to live with the knowledge of the impermanence of all things. At the same time, I am interested in exploring beauty as a concept, because I believe there is much to be found there.
In addition to my own practice, I am part of the artist duo Hedin & Uitto, as well as one of the founders of the publishing house Express Publications together with my friend and colleague Hilma Hedin, who also attended the school. We are planning new publications as well as the creation of new artistic works.
Ashik Zaman
Michaela Vega Hansson, BFA, Royal Institute of the Art (KKH), Stockholm
C-P: Congratulations Michaela on the upcoming Bachelor Fine Arts group show! Tell us more about what you will be exhibiting.
M.V.H: Thank you! My works in the show are an ongoing project to understand how traditional painting techniques can be used to mess around with the viewer's perception. I want to create a sense of mass and materiality and have the viewer question what it is they are looking at.
C-P: Having previously exhibited solo, what considerations come into play when preparing to show your works alongside other artists’?
M.V.H: I think it's much more fun! I prefer when I feel that my work serves a purpose or function. In a group show there are so many more possibilities to have works interact. We are still installing, however one of my works will probably have a strong visual impact with other works and the architecture in the room.
C-P: How has your practice and the themes you explore evolved in the process?
M.V.H: I have made my first hardcore sculpture! I am still stubborn and dedicated to the stretched canvas on wooden frames. However this time it's floor-based and I also added a little steel.
During my process I have had three words in my mind which are proun, kofés and topology. You can read more about what they mean in our catalogue. They describe my process of trying to create an object moving between painting, sculpture and architecture.
C-P: And lastly we would love to know about what you have coming up next after this show.
M.V.H: I will continue with my master straight away. I am already marinating some thoughts concerning my solo show in two years!
Corina Wahlin
Martin Jurík, MFA, Konstfack, Stockholm
C-P: Based in Bratislava prior, what led you to apply to Konstfack for your MFA?
M.J: I knew I wanted to change my surroundings and framework a bit after my BA in Bratislava , so I looked up some institutions that provided masters education in furniture design – Konstfack being one of them. I never got accepted to that, but I got invited to an interview for Fine Arts department instead. I never saw myself as an artist, but I gave it a shot. One of the best decisions of my life.
C-P: Earlier this year for your solo, you exhibited alongside Annie Andersson in what felt like a particularly strong dialogue, with several connections that were perhaps not immediately apparent. While aesthetically different, both of you presented works in a larger scale, and you now also share a section of
the Smedjan space in the ongoing MFA spring degree exhibition. What were some of the ideas behind your sculptures, and how did the two of you approach working within this new spatial context?
M.J: I consider myself very lucky to have worked alongside Annie on both of our exhibitions. She is an exceptional artist with an incredibly well-trained eye for responding to specific spaces. From the beginning, we knew that our first show at Havet would require a particular approach, since the space functions almost like a corridor, and we wanted to acknowledge those conditions.For me, that was also one of the factors that influenced the final scale of the works.
Our practices also overlap to some extent — we both engage with themes of longing, compulsion, and memory, though from very different points of departure. Later, the transition from Havet to Smedjan happened quite organically - by then we already had a clearer understanding of what the works demanded from their surroundings and which parts of them communicated with one another. Since Smedjan is a relatively compact space, many of the formal decisions emerged directly from that fact. We became more inclined to work with the existing structures, pushed the works a bit closer together. In a way, it almost feels more natural like this.
C-P: With graduation now around the corner, are you considering staying in Stockholm, and what might be coming up next for you?
M.J: That is hard to say. I have a partner waiting for me at home, along with some of my friends and family. At the moment, I feel the need to leave Stockholm for a while — in much the same way I felt I had to leave Slovakia two years ago. But I also have a feeling that I won't be gone for too long before returning again.
In Stockholm, I've met some of the most amazing and talented people and made many close friends along the way. I feel very grateful for the time I've been able to spend here so far, and looking forward for some more!
Koshik Zaman
Team efforts by Ashik Zaman, Koshik Zaman, Corina Wahlin, and Zachary Whittenburg