When she was twenty-six years old, Ulla Wiggen took part in the landmark 1968 exhibition Cybernetic Serendipity curated by Jasia Reichardt at the ICA London. In the context of that exhibition – which explored the possibilities of the fusion of art and science – she showed a series of acrylic and gouache paintings on wood panels portraying the interior circuity of electronic devices. Titled TRASK and Vägledare (both 1967), these paintings capture an archetype of technological culture in an impeccably precise style. In Wiggen’s first gouache paintings of circuit boards and electronic bits, like Förstärkare (1964) and Kretsfamilj (1964), extraordinarily defined layers of paint give the works a physical presence – an effect achieved by applying paint to a ground of woven medical gauze. In her later work, Wiggen’s interest in the circuitry of brains and eyes supplants that of manmade machines. In her Iris Paintings (2016–ongoing), the artist presents human irises laboriously painted in blues, greens, hazels on round panels, a process that can take several months per piece to complete. Citing the blurring of her vision due to cataracts prior to treatment, the artist has stated that she wanted to visually express this liminal state – one between clarity and ambiguity, between consciousness and sleep.
Madeline Weisburg
