Lenke Rothman – Manifestations of Life

Lenke Rothman’s paintings are like diaries in which she repeatedly processes her memories and experiences. A recurring theme in her long artistic career is to observe and preserve. “One must be prepared to make something out of nothing. From a little ash, from a piece of fabric, from threads, from discarded remnants – create survival. To demonstrate and impose meaning on existence.”

Small, everyday objects like buttons, safety pins, toys, cords, bits of paper, stones, and twigs – fragments of our time – are brought to life in her paintings. A constant search paired with feverish experimentation in new materials and techniques. The restlessness with which she seeks liberating expression goes deeper than mere curiosity for experimentation. The sensitivity of her nerves is evident in everything she paints, sews, cuts, burns, or ties together.

Lenke Rothman was born in Hungary in 1929. At the end of the war in 1945, she came to Sweden. She began drawing by correspondence from a hospital bed at a sanatorium in Arvika. From 1951 to 1955, Lenke Rothman studied at the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm, and from 1957 to 1958, she pursued further studies in Italy. Following her exhibition at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm in 1976, she was invited to become a member of the Academy. During the 1980s, Lenke Rothman was awarded several scholarships for work abroad, including at P.S. 1 in New York in 1981, the Djerassi Foundation in Woodside, California in 1984, and a residency at the Nordic Art Centre in Bergen in 1987. Additionally, Lenke Rothman is a prolific and frequently sought-after writer.