“Between Dream and Reality” is the title of a group exhibition of contemporary artists with a surreal, dreamlike attitude but with a foothold in reality. From the beginning, the idea was to gather artists under the heading “Fantastic Realism”, which suggests that the artist has an anchor in reality but reinforces the realism to become fantastic, to approach the unreal.

Surrealism emerged during the 1920s and had its breakthrough in Swedish art during the mid-1930s when Halmstadsgruppen’s (The Halmstad Group) dreamlike painting became known to a larger public. During the 1940s, the groups Minotaur and Imaginisterna had a surrealistic attitude with a more poetic touch.

Apart from the Halmstad group, there has been no unified surrealist group of artists with impact in Sweden. Therefore, it is interesting to bring together seven artists in 1989 for an exhibition under the theme “Between dream and reality”. Here we are introduced to the world of fairy tales and the subconscious. Some are beautiful dreams of unreal encounters, some depict the cruel world of fairy tales, others disguise our own frightening existence. The world of nature and known phenomena are magnified beyond recognition and have a different mystique.”

Artists: Gunilla Bade, Ulla Fries, Åke Johansson, Linda Lysell, Linda Gustavsson Nameth, Gertrud Stavling, Gerald Steffe