The paintings of Swedish born South African artist Tom Cullberg are at once familiar and foreign, pensive and playful. Charting territories between seemingly tangible and intangible worlds, the artist presents us with collections of represented objects that explore both fictitious story telling as well as real or recorded histories. These signifiers or symbols, appearing as though from dreams, hover or float over abstract grounds that, like the mechanics of memory appear in a state of flux. With humour and wit his paintings consider processes of association and recognition in the reading of both private and public narratives.
A graduate of the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town, Cullberg has gone on to present nineteen solo exhibitions in five different countries and his work has been included in curated exhibitions at various prestigious institutions and museums including amongst others Kulturhuset, Stockholm; Goteborgs Konst Museum, Gothenburg; the Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg; IZIKO South African National Gallery, Cape Town and Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA), Cape Town.
Cullberg's work can be found in the collection of the Swedish Parliament as well as a number of corporate collections including SASOL, Spier Arts Trust and Hollard in South Africa and Nandos in the UK.