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Agnes Hjalmarsson is a young artist with a remarkable sensitivity, capable of engaging anyone who observes her work. Born in Helsingborg in 2002, she graduated from the Östra Grevie Folkhögskola, where she studied oil painting.
Her art is a permanent album of memories, capable of capturing emotions and sensations that quickly pass by. Agnes describes it as autobiographical, a reflection of what truly matters to her in each moment, where each work captures moments full of meaning.
Her work explores themes such as ethnicity, identity, and relationships, focusing on the simplicity and charm of everyday situations. Thoughts and experiences find space on the canvas, which becomes the ideal medium for giving them form.
Agnes finds inspiration during her time working in a grocery store in Helsingborg: there, she meets and gets to know people, listens to stories, and is fascinated by what each of them carries within them. From this experience, the series of oil portraits titled “Stammis,” dedicated to regular customers, was born.
The series of paintings “To My Muse” features her partner, Andy Yeo, as a true muse capable of inspiring her and evoking profound emotions. Agnes challenges convention by questioning roles: Andy plays a traditionally feminine figure, while she portrays him with intense admiration.
Andy Yeo is not only a life partner, but also the one who guides her towards the rediscovery of her roots: the daughter of an adopted mother and raised in Sweden, Agnes travels to Korea in the summer of 2023, driven by a strong curiosity and the desire to reconnect with her culture. The encounter with her grandmother, aunt, and cousins is an epiphanic moment that reveals how her Korean heritage is part of her, despite the distance. Her personal and artistic identity, in fact, is shaped by what she experiences firsthand, but also by what she doesn’t know and misses.
This experience takes shape in the series of works HAL-MONI-POGO-SHIP-A-SAYO (Grandma, I missed you). The faces and bodies of her relatives appear fragmented and incomplete, evoking the impossibility of full communication. Art thus becomes the tool to fill the empty spaces surrounding her culture, the places, and people she has never truly known.
Agnes’s work encourages us to appreciate and rediscover meaning in the simplest gestures and moments of everyday life, gaining a growing following.
