Ghosts of Surrealism

Essay by Fredrik Söderberg

The French poet and art critic Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918) was the originator of the word “surrealism” and used the term to describe the music of composer Erik Satie (1866–1925). In all likelihood he had little conception of the significance this term would come to have for art, not least for painting. When I think of Anna Camner’s paintings, I think of Surrealism – perhaps it is my habit, or bad habit, if you will, of always wanting to pick apart what I’m seeing in order to analyze the building blocks of a painting – a kind of mental illness of painting that can afflict those who are painters themselves. Is what we see in Camner’s images correct – is it real? Is what is depicted in the painting part of reality, or is it an object from the world of dreams, retrieved by the artist and brought back into what we perceive as reality? We see strange and labyrinthine hollows and whorls, melting matter, and eruptions of oil paint on acrylic. The paintings’ foundations are acrylic glass, and plastic is not infrequently depicted in various stages of seduction and disgust, as when the latex of sexuality gleams in the painting Shut Up. In the painting Reverie, we see a face instead, or is it a mask? The figure is painted in whitish gray color that recalls porcelain, we cannot tell if the material has solidified, though the craquelure on the chin suggests it might be so. Could it be face cream or has the head been dipped in paint, the painter’s revenge for an injustice? A beauty mask gone wrong? The deformed eyelashes suggest something uncomfortable and tormenting about the whole situation. The pink interior of the mouth can be seen as a cut to the face made by a razor blade, the epicenter of the painting and its respiratory cavity, so to speak. The surreal returns in the title of the painting, “reverie” meaning “daydream”. The painting is like a daytime nightmare; perhaps nightmares aren’t only dreamt by us at night?

Anna Camner’s paintings have many attributes from the Surrealist arsenal of symbols and metaphors. The irrational and disjointed scale of the images can be captured by the esoteric expression “As above, so below,” or “As in the great, so in the small,” an expression of micro- and macrocosm. The eye is another common motif in Surrealist history. The eye can be seen as a representation of physiological vision, but also as a representation of inner vision, the connection to the dream world and the subconscious. In the early Surrealist short film “The Andalusian Dog” (1929) by Luis Buñuel (1900–1983) and Salvador Dali (1904–1989), a woman’s eye plays the leading role. In the film’s first scene, her eye is brutally mutilated with a razor. An act of violence directed against the organ of the body with which we perceive painting. The novella The Story of the Eye (1928) by Georges Bataille (1897–1962), another of Surrealism’s great literary works, deals with the perverted gaze and how the eye as an organ feeds on perversions. In it, the eye itself is torn from its socket when the matador El Granero is gored by a bull. In Bataille’s work, the eyeball becomes interchangeable with eggs, bull testicles, and other objects with similar shapes. In Anna Camner’s paintings, can we see a pattern in her recurring and repeated motifs and objects? I think so; every artist seems to have a personal collection of glyphs and symbols that builds up over time. I note the following: eyes, gloves, zippers, cavities, and mushroom-like structures with a marshmallow-like consistency. Objects appear to be made of chewing gum and transparent fabrics.

A painter usually develops their own color palette, and Camner is no exception. I see a preference for powdery tones, dominated by hues of pink and ice blue, as well as a wide range of whites. Of course, there are many other colors that Camner also uses with skill. The more organic earth tones, however, are less common. Is it because they’re too close to reality? Do the exaggerated pink and blue colors represent dreams or something opposite to what we perceive as reality? That these colors do not belong to reality.

Mushrooms have traditionally been used in animistic religions as guides and portals to the other side, out into the cosmos, and as sources from which to draw knowledge that will help the tribe, heal the sick, and offer guidance ahead of important decisions. Anna Camner has indeed painted mushrooms or what look like mycelia with remarkable frequency. The painting Bacchanal is one example – it is a depiction of what looks like a wondrous forest of mushrooms painted hyper-realistically in shades of pinkish purple, coral colors, and orange. The painting brings to mind the early French fantasy and science fiction author Jules Verne’s (1828–1903) adventure novel Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), in which the main characters suddenly find themselves in a forest of giant illuminated mushrooms growing in the earth’s interior. Jules Verne describes fantasy worlds so convincingly and scientifically that the reader can’t help but fall for the illusion. Camner’s painting works in the same way; Bacchanal is like entering a comparable fantasy world. This is made possible by the artist’s skillful technique, which gets us to believe in the illusion: the work convinces the viewer that even the most absurd, fantastical world is real.

Guillaume Apollinaire was also known as an art thief and was arrested for stealing the Mona Lisa and a collection of ancient Iberian busts from the Louvre. However, he was never convicted and was released after a week. I allow myself to speculate that a similar misfortune might befall Anna Camner. For surely it is only that which rouses our wonder and has something of fetishistic desire about it that is at risk of being stolen.

Fredrik Söderberg August 2025
Translated from the Swedish by Saskia Vogel