Born in Stockholm, Sweden, Märta Mattsson first studied jewellery in Gothenburg at HDK School of Design and Crafts. She perfected her technique by completing courses at London Royal College of Art, Tokyo Hiko Mizuno College of Jewelry and Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, USA. Since 2006, her work has been shown in several international galleries and displayed in about a dozen public museums collections, including Stockholm National Museum, New York Museum of Art and Design and Houston Museum of Fine Arts. In 2012, she was chosen to exhibit at Schmuck, Munich major contemporary art fair.
Using materials that may at first seem unfit for jewellery, Märta’s work explores the threshold between disgust and attraction. Strongly inspired by 18th century cabinets of wonders, which often displayed a patchwork of newly discovered species, she tries to make us see beauty in what may first seem repulsive. Conserving the original shape of the wings and bodies of her dead cicadas, she captures them in resin to protect and enhance their beauty with delicate and precise dabs of pigments. By preserving however the natural signs of time’s passing, she allows the « lives » and history of those beings to keep further on.
From November 8 to 30, 2019, she will present her recent series Hybrids in a duo exhibition with Silke Spitzer.
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