Maurits Ylitalo Beckers Art Award 2011

Scholarship exhibition
Project rooms, Färgfabriken

The 24th Beckers Art Award – a grant of 150,000 SEK – will this year be awarded to Maurits Ylitalo, a painter living and working in Borås.

Jury statement

Maurits Ylitalo is an artist who freely connects complex stories in painting, watercolour, collage and drawing. With his intricate worlds Ylitalo dwells into the depths of his own imagination and thereby invites us to a rich, and sometimes absurd, room in which everything seems possible: landscape meets myth and play. References from art history, peculiar ideas and cut-outs are mixed with picturesque precision in the smallest details, altogether in a fragile shade, a perceptible melancholy in the very middle of the urge itself. With his practice Maurits Ylitalo unlocks the gate to a greater world – a world that we can step into, a world that extends far beyond the private isolate. Maurits Ylitalo receives Beckers Art Award for his ability to, from his inner self, fix our gaze on something we have either seen or felt before – he gives us a glimpse in the magic of art.

On behalf of the jury/Mårten Castenfors

Related

Beckers Art Award was established in 1987 and has since then proven to have a remarkable ability to identify young talents on the brink of a breakthrough in their careers. The winner is awarded a grant, which from this year has been raised from 150,000 to 200,000 SEK, and a solo exhibition that has, since 2001, been arranged and held in collaboration with Färgfabriken.

Jury: Jenny Lindén Urnes, Mårten Castenfors och Magnus Jensner

Key partners