Anne-Karin Sundquist

Anne-Karin Sundquist trained at, among other institutions, the Norwegian National Academy of Fine Art from 1979 to 1983. She makes paintings, drawings, and collages, and in Stort hull (‘large hole’) she combines a drawing of a diamantine shape with a found photograph of a person showing their handless arms. What is the connection between these elements? The artist has perhaps seen a link between the beautiful and the catastrophic, in this case the consequences of the illegal diamond trade and its brutal mix of war, conflict, and raw capitalism. Diamond mining has a bloody history, hence the term “blood diamonds”, an activity that capitalized on civil war, mutilation, and murder. Diamonds are part of a global trade system, so the bloodiness spreads along with the beautiful diamonds. This is one of the aspects that can be read from Sundquist’s juxtaposition of the found photograph and her own drawing of the diamond, transparent on one side and stained with dark blood on the other. RG