Bio

Engström was born in Örebro, Sweden, in 1989. A self-taught artist, after studying at Fashion Institute of Technology School in 2012, she worked as a fashion assistant in New York, but the positive response she received from posting her drawings of her alter ego, the voluptuous female figure she called ‘Husa’ (housemaid in Swedish, but chosen more because she liked the sound of the word) persuaded her to leave the fashion world behind and make art in earnest. Formerly based in Brooklyn, she later landed in Los Angeles and has divided her time between there and her homeland Sweden ever since.

Her bucolic, metaphysical landscapes celebrate the healing properties of Mother Nature. Their trippy, hallucinogenic palette and voluptuous curving forms realised in a sorbet-coloured palette channel the erotic charge of Georgia O’Keeffe while their spiritual energy owes much to her fellow Swede Hilma Af Klint. Hailed as both “feminist and fecund”, Engström’s art offers an uplifting riff on millennial preoccupations spawned from the digital realm, from body shaming to the cult of the self.

CV

Upcoming
2024 Carl Kostyal, London

Past Exhibitions

2023 Over The Influence, Paris 2022 Over The Influence, Bangkok
2022 KONIG Gallery, Berlin
2021 Over The Influence, Hong Kong
2021 Carl Kostyal, Hospitalet Stockholm, Sweden
2020 Returning Home, Over The Influence, Los Angeles, CA
2018 Husa’s Garden, Hilde Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2017 Flora, Cooler Gallery, New York, NY
2016 Faces, Deli Gallery, New York, NY

Select Group Exhibitions

2024 Beyond The Visible, Albertz Benda
2023 Painters of Modern Life, Carl Kostyál, Ibiza
2021 Over The Influence, Los Angeles, CA
2020 Rise and Shine, Over The Influence, Hong Kong
2020 Legalize Humanity, Subliminal Projects, Los Angeles, CA
2018 Sweet Cheeks, Big Pictures Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2017 Visible Range, Deli Gallery, New York, NY