Ceysson & Bénétière

b. 1998 in Stockholm, SE

Lives and works in New York, NY

Education

2020-2022 MFA Columbia University School of The Arts, New York, NY

2009-2013 BFA Parsons The New School of Design, New York, NY

Linnéa Gad, born in 1990, is a visual artist from Stockholm, Sweden. Her sculptures, prints, paintings and installations are a response to our climate catastrophe, engaging with time-based ecological processes that govern our ecosystems. She currently 'collaborates' with limestone, oysters, cardboard, bark, and other shell materials, initiating unexpected dialogues that evoke empathy for the vibrant 'lives' of these materials. Reflecting the ethos of island culture instilled by her upbringing in the Stockholm archipelago, her artistic process embraces a deliberate sense of care and frugality. Techniques like mending and recycling are inherent to her ethos, and this resourceful approach permeates her reflections on the afterlife of her works—how they might transform, evolve, return to the life cycles of their materials, and ultimately dissolve.

Gad’s solo shows include Erratics at Spencer Brownstone in New York (2019), Luster Pit at RØM in Copenhagen (2018), and Mound Remover at New Release Gallery in New York (2018). The artist has recently participated in group shows at The Jewish Museum in New York (2022), The Lenfest Center for the Arts in New York (2021) and SixtyEight Art Institute in Copenhagen (2021). She is the recipient of grants from The Swedish Arts Grants Committee and was shortlisted for the Frankenthaler Climate Art Awards in 2022. Gad was a part-time lecturer at Parsons The New School for Design in 2022 and is an adjunct professor at Columbia University School of The Arts. The artist’s first publication "Kalk" is to be released by Danish RSS Press. 

In her sculptures, prints, paintings and installations, Linnéa Gad transforms images and materials to recognizable yet ambiguous landscapes.

Growing up partly in the archipelago on an island, her father a seaplane pilot, Gad’s vision of an island landscape from above is ingrained in her. For her, landscape is an overwhelming visual experience where the brain has to abstract from an abundance of information. 

“It is with an anxious joy I look down at a landscape. In the obscurity of distance I meet the itching edge of my capacity to think and feel.” In Gad’s visual language, great distances simplify shapes, bringing softness and faded colors to the palette. 

While researching New Release’s neighborhood, Gad was struck by the topographical history of Collect Pond and subsequently the mound next to it. The popular pond, long gone with contamination; a sterile version recently resurrected. This loop of environmental disharmony in observing a specific locale has greatly molded Gad’s developing exhibition across the street.

Gad’s work reflects the idea of multiples (copy machines, slip casting, etching) but instead of making identical works, she identifies the mark making and integrity of the process to create, instead, unique pieces. 

Within her porcelain works, she forms shape and textures in clay, then transfers it to a plaster mold to make a porcelain slip cast. This process adds and removes layers of information to the objects. Other works in the exhibition include a set of aquatints as well as large-scale toner transfers on silk, which visualizes a printout of a reading on Visual Tourism and proposed museum islands in Abu Dhabi. This heavily Xeroxed document has slowly deteriorated its imagery, as the proposed museum islands have since then been realized. 

Solo Exhibitions

2023

Shoals, Billion Oyster Project/The Immigrant Artist Biennial, Governors Island, New York

2019

Erratics, Spencer Brownstone Gallery, New York

2018

Mound Remover, New Release Gallery, New York

Luster Pit, RØM, Copenhagen

2017

Soliloquy, 6BASE, New York

2016

Currently Remodelling, SBG31, Stockholm

2013

[interlude], Swedish Church, New York

Group Exhibitions 

2024

Summer Stance, Astor Weeks, New York

2024

Skulptur Projekte Stockholm, Beau Travail, Stockholm

2024

A Cherished Haunting, curator: Eric Lawton, New Collectors, New York

2023

Downtown Issues II, Issues Gallery, Stockholm

2022

On The Verge, curator: Jeanette Gunnarsson, Lauren Johnson, Wetterling Gallery, Stockholm

Otherwise, curator: Carlota Ortiz, Ho Won Kim, Victoria Horrocks, Half Gallery, New York

IN RESPONSE: Jonas Mekas, The Jewish Museum, New York

Visual Arts MFA Thesis Exhibition, curator: Elisabeth Sherman, Wallach Art Gallery, New York

2021

Biting The Nest, curator: Rebekka Anker-Moller SixtyEight Art Institute, Copenhagen

THE (better late than never) SUMMER SHOW, curator: Junni Chen & Owen Duffy, New York

Downtown Issues, Issues Gallery, Stockholm

I Thought It Was A Drought, Yonkers, New York

First Year MFA Exhibition, curator: Regine Basha, Wallach Art Gallery, New York

2020

Decameron 10, curator: Erin Goldberger, New Release Gallery

2019

Sleepwalkers, curator: Lauren Johnson, Elk Glade Ranch, Colorado

Dream Island, Art Lab Gnesta, Gnesta

2016

Dioramas, Auto Body, Long Island

Melted City 2, curator: Louie Cordero and Jordin Isip, Blanc Gallery, Quezon City

2014

Call For Extras, curator: Katily A Cramer, Gauthier Gallery, Brooklyn

Traces, Gowanus Loft, Brooklyn

Shrink it Pink it!, curator: Diana Buckley & Irena Jurek, Cathouse FUNeral, Brooklyn

Down Below The Feet, Park Life, San Francisco

2013

An Evening At Home, curator: James Cope and Peter Cybulski, New York