2.10.—2.11.2025

“The title of the exhibition is C’est si bon. It is a French chanson from 1947, a hymn to good life after the war years. This exhibition explores life as both a dream and an escape from reality, which is not merely a matter of denial but also consolation.

We consume lifestyles, travelling to distant lands and living out our dreams of abundance while the world around us is in flames. These are the thoughts we have turned over in our minds while creating the exhibition. To express this, the works are painted as a kind of poetic gesture.”

The name Tilpo is the pseudonym of painter Hans Eriksson and set designer Hanna Aihonen. Sharing several decades of practice between them, the artists create their works collaboratively, with Eriksson doing most of the painting in dialogue with Aihonen. According to them, the collaboration originally began with plays they wrote to one another.

You can see elements of the absurd in the motifs. In the painting Svindel (Vertigo), a human figure resembling a monkey roams free along a street that dissolves beneath its feet. In another painting, a woman clad in fur stands on a laid dining table at a camping site, drinking juice through a straw from a carton. Things one has taken to be true begin to lose their meaning. What is certain becomes uncertain. Such movement between worlds, and their acute and critical observation, is characteristic of Eriksson and Aihonen’s work.

The subjects of the paintings convey a tribute to everyday life and an understanding of the contradictoriness inherent in human experience and ways of living. The work Chamberplay presents a luxuriant view of an a living room. Its title alludes to the concept of the chamber play, popularised in the 20th century by the novelist and playwright August Strindberg. In Tilpo’s paintings, broad expanses of colour merge with detailed brushwork, feeding each other with abundance, in a manner that recalls the post-war years with their incredulous assertion: “C’est si bon (All is well).”

Hans Eriksson (b. 1960) studied at the Royal Institute of Art in Sweden and has had a long career as a painter. Hanna Aihonen (b. 1960) has worked extensively as a set designer in the theatre world. The duo have been collaborating for some twenty years. Tilpo’s large-scale solo exhibition Best Wishes from Us was shown at Moderna Museet Malmö in 2022. Numerous other solo and group exhibitions have been held at, among others, Liljevalchs konsthall, Stockholm; Galleri Lars Bohman, Stockholm; Galleri Hedenius, Stockholm; Passagen, Linköpings konsthall; Galleria Kari Kenetti, Helsinki; Kungliga Akademien, Stockholm; Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki; and Camden Arts Centre, London. Tilpo’s works have been acquired by several collections, including Moderna Museet, Stockholm; EMMA Espoo Museum of Modern Art; Emil Aaltonen Foundation, Tampere; Göteborgs konstmuseum; and Malmö konstmuseum. Tilpo lives and works in Stockholm. C’est si bon is their second exhibition at Galerie Anhava.