ArtistSwedish
Mats Åkerman
1 active items
Mats Åkerman was born in Stockholm in 1956, and the maps he drew as a child turned out to be the beginning of something much larger. Before he ever showed in a gallery, he had already started charting a country that did not exist - Den Svagiska Unionen, the Swagi Union - complete with its own geography, history, and recurring cast of characters. The central figure is Rocco Rivarossi, a traveller moving through an imagined 1950s Europe of railway carriages, harbour restaurants, and provincial hotels.
He studied art history, philosophy, and the history of ideas at Stockholm University between 1980 and 1983, then completed teacher training in image-making at Konstfack from 1983 to 1986. In 1990 he founded Brukets Målarskola on the island of Blidö in the Stockholm archipelago, a painting school where landscape study in the field became the primary method. Teaching has run alongside his studio practice ever since.
The Svagiska Unionen is not a parallel world so much as a concentrated one. Åkerman paints it in oil, draws it in maps and diagrams, documents it in films, and narrates it in published books. The first volume, 'Retur' (Bokförlaget Atlantis, 2003), follows Rocco Rivarossi's train journey through the union and was illustrated entirely by the artist. A sequel, 'A la prima', appeared in 2010 with a foreword by journalist Johan Hakelius, and a third volume, 'Sällsamheter i den Svagiska Unionen', was published in 2020 with Arvinius + Orfeus.
His exhibition history runs through some of Stockholm's attentive mid-size galleries. He showed at Galleri Överkikaren in 1995 and 2000, began a sustained collaboration with Galleri Agardh & Tornvall in 2003 with further shows in 2004, 2007, and 2011, and presented work at Edsvik konsthall in Sollentuna in 2010. More recently he has been represented by Galleri Backlund, Galleri Blå, Galleri Mats Bergman, and NOA Gallery, suggesting a steady audience for the project.
On the secondary market, Åkerman's oils on canvas have traded at Fineart, Metropol, Karlstad Hammarö Auktionsverk, and Gomér & Andersson. The top recorded sale in the Auctionist database reached 3,000 SEK for a signed and dated 2014 oil. With two works currently active and a total of eleven lots documented, his auction presence is modest but consistent, and the price range reflects a collector base that engages directly with galleries rather than the secondary market.