Artistic Statement
Ami Bergman’s artistic practice informs an act of (re)discovering and (re)building a rapport and relationship with the self, moving forward from past traumas and hardships in life.Placing herself front and centre is driven by compassion and marked by self-love and reconciliation with who she is and how she appears today in a society built on norms and standards that do not always seem to include her; a woman who will be deemed older and factually also is.Her practice is a mirror of now living and enjoying life with its various inherent realities, reveries and oddities. She has taken a step back in the past, but this is her claiming her space and time in the world.
Ashik Zaman. Editor-in-chief, C-Print Journal.
Artist statement augusti 2025
Självporträttet är kärnan i mitt skapande, jag tecknar och målar i ett ständigt sökande efter något svårdefinierbart. Jag omprövar relationen till mig själv och min kropp. Det handlar inte om att behaga eller trotsa, utan om att fånga det jag ser: en kropp som jag förlikat mig med. Jag målar denna kvinnokropp som tittar tillbaka med en bejakande , utforskande, stadig och skarp blick, ibland har jag ett litet kolstift, penna eller pensel i min överdimensionerade hand.
Jag har alltid fascinerats av kroppar, hus och interiörer-att skapa en egen plats i världen, både yttre och inre , som en slags Fengshui för själen. Detta intresse är nära knutet till min hälsa, då jag lever med två kroniska sjukdomar, som jag lärt mig acceptera och hantera delvis genom att återkommande måla och teckna min egen kropp. Jag är nyfiken på måleriet och vill vidareutveckla det, tex genom att vara i naturen och försöka fånga dess väsen och den psykologiska erfarenheten av färgen bla. Jag har ingen direkt akademisk utbildning i måleri att luta mig mot men har en gedigen teckning, målning och skulptur utbildning, verksamhet i grunden. Jag har en lust för mitt arbete och materialet. Nu är jag positiv i mitt liv, ägnar mig åt praktik av självläkning, att jag möter mina rädslor , är inte så sökande att läka mina trauman utan navigerar i dem och vänder mig utåt i världen och min plats i den och till mina medmänniskor.
Ami Bergman’s (b. 1966) artistic practice is a progression from traumas and difficulties in life. She works with her femininity and the patriarchy. By showing herself and her relationship to the outside world by painting self-portraits, dresses, clothes, movement, dance, nature, writing text she lives and enjoys life more. The work is a reflection of what she encounters of realities, strangeness and the odd in life. Bergman is represented in the Moderna Museet’s collection and in a private collection in the Netherlands, has recently shown work at Moderna Museet, Stockholm; The Governor’s residence in Skåne and Lundgren Gallery, Mallorca and received scholarships from the Malmö Art Museum and the Skånska Konstnärsklubben.
Text/ Malmö Open Studios,2023
Ami Bergman(b 1966) The self fills the pictorial space with ease .The turquoise-blue background is painted with brushstrokes that follow the body, which is dressed in contrasting light yellow-colored dress.Ami Bergman’s artistic practice is grounded in years of highly- skilled work using painting and drawing.Often placing herself at the centre, it is as if she repeatedly wants us to remind us of something. Bergmans self-portrait ,of her self as an artist, prompt questions of representation ,of not pleasing, or defying the limiting norms of how an older woman should look or act.With a paintbrush in her exaggerated hand she meets the viewers eye with an exploratory gaze. The hands are those of a worker ,and they possesses the ability to tireless create a place of one’s own in the world.
Text/Moderna Museet, Stockholm, 2022.
The colour treatment in ”self-portrait” is sophisticated, setting pale vanilla against turquoise blues. Ami bergman’s work is not based on an academic background , and her work is purley pleasure -driven. But the seemingly carefree simplicity is deceptive. The palpably psykal shapes and poses evoked by the paint are based on many years of skilled sculpting and drawing. But Bergman’s self-portrait is not just about colour and form ;it is about something profoundly existential, about claiming space, not trying to please, defiying limiting norms for how women of a certain age should look and behave. The woman is centraly placed in the work.With brush in hand , she looks back at us with a steady gaze. Although her feet are outside the picture, we perceive her as standing very firmly.
Text, Book, Swedish Aquisitions 2021 , Moderna Museet, Stockholm. Publ 2024
Ami Bergman Artist 