Biography
Maria Boström was born in Jakobstad, Finland, where from an early age she began to develop a deep interest in art, spending many hours in the studio of her artist uncle Bo Aurens.
After high school, Maria attended Västra Nyland's Art Program in Karis, Finland, where she came into contact with various personalities, who gave her the opportunity to explore numerous mediums and disciplines, allowing her to evolve in her artistic experience.
What really marked her artistic career was her move to Hong Kong in 1989, where she chose to spend several years. Before her return to Northern Europe, Maria decided to see the world, travelling and letting each experience imprint itself on her path, colouring her personality as well as her artistic expressiveness. In fact, she only returned to settle in Stockholm in 1997, bringing with her a much broader cultural background and a new artistic maturity oriented towards abstraction.
Maria is now able to perceive signals and vibrations with greater intensity, managing to channel that energy untied from consciousness, which tends to escape our gaze. Indeed, it is precisely there, where we dare not explore, that Maria goes in search of answers. The soul communicates through the brush and magic meets emotion.
Starting in 2017, following her first solo exhibition 'Trinus', Maria's artistic career evolved rapidly. Already in 2018, a new exhibition - 'Temperment Fragment' - opens in Öregrund, at the Ekan Gallery, followed by the 'Raw Elegance' project, featuring her art on limited edition carpets, in collaboration with the Dutch design house Moooi.
Then, in 2019, thanks to the great success of her solo exhibition 'Ma', held at No18 in Stockholm, Maria's art began to be popular throughout Scandinavia, opening new doors for her artistic career soon to Europe.
Since 2020, in fact, her works have also featured in several exhibitions: 2020 exhibition at Allé på Österlen together with photographer Tina Axelsson; 2020 solo exhibition at Galleri Melefors; 2021 solo exhibition 'ZANSHIN' at Wisby Galleri; 2021 Affordable Art Fair in Stockholm; 2022 exhibition at Galleri Sjöhästen Nyköping together with Mats Wieslander and Robert Oldergaarden; 2022 Maria is represented by Amsterdam Living and House of Avinyo in Barcelona; 2022 solo exhibition 'ACTAM REM AGO' at Sigtuna Kulturgård; Between 2022 and 2023 she participated in several exhibitions at M.A.D.S. Art Gallery represented by art curator Francesca Brunello. In November 2023, in Copenhagen, she presented the Eyes Wide Open project in collaboration with art curator Francesca Brunello, photographer Tina Axelsson and Professor Eva Boiner Horwitz, a cultural health researcher specializing in psychosomatic medicine and creative arts.
To date, Maria's creativity and personality continue to grow, never ceasing to fascinate us viscerally. Her profound sensitivity allows her to read and perceive her surroundings and to see clearly those signs that the past has left her. Form, color and harmony for her are like oxygen to be breathed in, to narrate an amalgamation of otherwise unknown emotions, giving us the possibility to look beyond.
Maria Boström's works embody a deep meditative process, acting as vessels filled with emotion. For Maria Boström, art is a vehicle to confront herself and a means to open up to the world, offering the viewers the opportunity to connect with a narrative of pure intimacy. Alternating between palette knife strokes, dynamic brush strokes and layers of paint, she constructs her works in a completely abstract language, letting her own feeling flow through the visual space, which is thus enriched with energy. Maria Boström's paintings form a cohesive narrative, recounting the mutability of life in its perpetual becoming. They narrate a story of beauty and pain, which here amalgamate to create new forms of thought. According to Heraclitus, becoming is the substance of Being, as everything is subject to time and transformation. What appears static to sensory perception is in truth dynamic and constantly changing. The artist's thoughts are deeply rooted in this concept, where the eternal process of metamorphosis now takes tangible form before our eyes. By delving into the changing nature of existence, Maria Boström's works provide an opportunity to encounter one's deepest self. They prompt a journey of self-discovery, confronting both artist and viewer. Embracing the concept of eternal transformation, Maria Boström's paintings invite us to embark on a personal exploration and to connect with our deepest selves.
- Francesca Brunello