The fantastic artist CAMILLA BOSTRÖM, better known as SCEB, has been decorating the walls in her city of Gothenburg and beyond for many years. When we conducted this interview, for example, she had just returned from the Meeting of Styles Kosovo. Her works are abstract, colorful formations, often associated with plants or animals, and are created exclusively with spray cans. At least as far as the wall is concerned, because in addition to spraying, the creative artist is also active in other fields, she makes clothing or carpets, paintings on canvas and whatever else comes to mind. We visited SCEB in her studio in Gothenburg, a colorful place filled with interesting stuff.
This article is a little differently than usual on the website because it was a double interview. The interview included the great OLLIO, another awesome artist from Gothenburg. The two are a couple and complement each other very well in their projects and also in the interview. In the audio you can listen to the conversation with the two of them, but for the articles we have divided the conversation according to the artists so that there is a separate page for each. In the audio is the talk with both, below are the excerpts that concern only SCEB with heaps of photos about her artworks and you can find the parts with OLLIO on his individual interview page.
We started communicating several days ago. But you haven’t been in town because you just came back from Kosovo. From Pristina and from the Meeting of Styles. I saw your finished artwork. It’s with black and white and you made it like a round circle. I thought it looks a bit like a planet or a moon.
It was more like a frame of urban nature, abstract plants like in a picture. But I mostly experimented with a new cap and a new holder that I could bought at the festival that did very, very skinny lines. Like three millimeter lines. So I was more like experimenting with the colors and the structure and the lines. And this not in a square, but I choose the circle form to experiment more like with trees and bushes and forms like that.
It took already a lot of photographs from artworks from both of you in Gothenburg, but I found more artworks from SCEB. And I thought like most of the paintings there are like a mixture of graphic structures and also with nature elements. You have a lot of works with birds, flowers and plants which are in some way integrated in graphic forms. That’s how I saw it.
So it often the reason that I’m a designer and I work with the clients. So they can choose from my existing paintings. I give them my book and they can choose from there and they can also choose some different colors. And often they choose more the figurative art, not the abstract.
Okay, so the reason why there are a lot of animals is more because of the clients who like that motifs. But are you actually also more in the figurative yourself or more the abstract works? Or both?
Both. Because when I do a lot of abstract, I get tired of that. And then I want to do something figurative again and I work in blocks. Can you call it that? Yeah, I would say I work in different work blocks, or shifts or parts. Or in different projects. So for example this here, this is both. Figurative and abstract. It shows actually garlic plants, but I have made it abstract. And this here is wood with the trees.
The abstract painting is kind of a plant itself which grows on the wall.
This here is also kind of abstract, but actually it’s a squash plant. And this here is a collaboration between us. So me and OLLIO. That was the old painting, but that was destroyed by throw ups and tags. So I had to paint it once more again.
There are numerous works around the city and you have connections to make commission works with clients, which means that there are a lot of artworks which you can find in Gothenburg at the pedestrian are in the center or at shops and restaurants.
Yes, those artworks are all for clients, they are commissions and I get paid for it. They can choose approximately what they want. So if they want birds in green, I can do that. But more and more I can choose to do what I want and they maybe only choose the colors, so it will go with their sofa or the furniture or something like that. Because I also paint inside restaurants and storese.
What I really liked was this project in the big parking garage. I is named ArtMadeThis. Some days ago I went as well to this parking place and photographed everything. There are most of the artworks inside the building but also in the area around on the streets. With this project they wanted to highlight female artists from Sweden and you were also involved.
I have done three paintings, but I had to paint one over and to do one newly, because at the one space the door was old and they had to remove the door. So I had to do a new one on the new door. Here I have a photo, this is an artwork from ArtMadeThis. It’s at the Espresso House. I was one of the first women who painted in that project. So in the beginning they wanted to see the sketch before I made my painting, but I don’t know if I would have to do that anymore.
Was it initiative by artists or by the city or who organized this project?
The owner of the buildings started this idea. It’s a collaboration project between the owner and a man named Ali Davoudi, who is the project leader. He also choose and invited the woman artists. It’s Vasakronan, which is more like a private building company that supports the project and pay the artists. And then this guy Ali is the project leader and he was hired by them. He picks the artists and helps them out to manage the process as well. As well we have this really nice project that you have seen around the city, which is called “Planksidan” or “Planket”. It means “The Wall” or something like that and it’s on the walls around the huge building sites in town. And there are really a lot at the moment, because they are building this big project that is called “West Link”. It’s almost like an underground system with three tunnels. But they have huge building areas and artists can apply to paint these walls around the building sites. And they are really big, also they are super long and some of them are even four meters high. Mostly they are three meters. You can choose which size you want to do and you can apply. I also took part already and meanwhile a lot of other Gothenburg artists have done walls. Also a lot of people from abroad came here and done walls as well. They pay again a kind of good salary, so it’s really nice and it’s good for the city and the walls. This project is also good because it’s going on for almost ten years. So they started around 2018 and it will continue until maybe 2027 or even later.
Now let’s go back in history and time. When did you start doing art and how did you come to do urban art?
I was always interested in all categories of creativity. I like to do patterns and painting and drawings, designing clothes, interior, everything. But in the begining I went to an art school. Actually I’ve gone to several art schools. I’m from the region in Sweden which is called in Värmlands, where there are a lot of woods. It’s not an urban city and there are more woods and nature. Then I moved to Gothenburg and went to an art school and met OLLIO. He started painting when he was very young and I started following him with his friends. But I was still in this art school and we did the ordinary stuff what you just do at art schools.
And this spray can material is simply something special for me. I’m quite restless and I want to make things fast. It’s very satisfying and also funny with spray cans. And I also like it to take a little trip and do something together just for fun. I have never been an ordinary graffiti painter, but I’m more like experimenting and having the cans like a material. And now after time passes, suddenly I have painted for 20 years with cans. So I don’t know, you can call me what you want. For creating my works I only use spray cans. Some people would call me a graffiti artist, but I mostly make figurative murals. Still I use cans. So am I a graffiti artist or not? I don’t know.
We just mentioned it before that you just came back from an event. From the Meeting of Styles in Pristina. I’m sure you’ve been to a lot of events before. So what do you like about going to festivals and about painting at an event together with others?
I haven’t been at such a big event before, just at small festivals and only with small walls and stuff like that. Because mostly I think those events would be with a lot of guys, very tough guys with attitude and stuff like that. It’s a very male thing, like a male culture. Still it’s fun anyway. But there it was different and it was a really nice festival with a lots of families. The kids were running around and looking what we did and there was music and food.
So you as a female artist went into this masculine area, but I think in the last years it changed a lot and a lot more female artists are around and doing urban art. How do you perceive this? And as well, how is it in Sweden? Do you have the feeling there are more female artists nowadays? When I saw all those artworks from ArtMadeThis, I realized that a lot of new artists emerged recently.
Yes, there are a lot of women who are doing creative stuff on the streets. But mostly the motifs are not like the guys’ motifs. They always want to do cool stuff with monsters and stuff like that. But females choose more motifs like girls stuff, flowers and hearts. On the festival for example I didn’t see any girl or woman making letters. Let’s say there have been approximately 20% or 10% women. Not so many, but there are really good artists.
So you’re painting since 20 years, you have been to little jams and spray session, but this was now actually the first really big event?
Yes, it was really big for me. Because I don’t paint ordinary graffiti graffiti stuff. And I did not know how I would be like. But it was cool. Yeah, I liked it. Maybe next year again. We will see. We have been at the Pompeii Street Festival too. And there it was also great. How many painters have been there, I don’t remember. I think there were more than 30.
Tell us more about the exhibitions you had and which are going to come.
I have one project running up right now in a small city in the north. And after that I have a big one in Uppsala, which is another smaller city in Sweden. Also there is something a huge coming, but it’s secret so I can’t tell anything about it yet. I like to work different projects, so I have exhibition with only drawings and patterns and sometimes it’s the only splash paintings, so it’s very different. That’s why I do both, I paint abstract and figurative, and I like short projects.And last summer we had an exhibition together in kind of big venue. It was called Energy. We had a lot of colors and a lot of different materials and it was like crazy with crazy colors. A very cool event.
So SCEB and OLLIO, it was a very interesting and great talking to you two. Thank you very much for this cool interview!
Thank you too! It was really nice. And if you listeners or readers, if you come to Gothenburg at any time, you can always give us a message on Instagram or whatever and we can guide you and help you out.
ARTWORKS BY SCEB ON THE GOTHENBURG MAP
INFOTHEK
Artist: SCEB – S Camilla E Boström
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camilla.bostrom
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/__sceb__
Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sceb
Tumblr: https://scamillaebostrom.tumblr.com
Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/scebandollio
Photographer: SCEB & VAGABUNDLER
Construction Wall Project: PLANKSIDAN – PLANKET
Website: https://www.trafikverket.se/vara-projekt/projekt-i-vastra-gotalands-lan/vastlanken/planksidan
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