Surface Matter – Stockholm 2026
21–29 November 2026
Vernissage 20 November 2026
Material Differences brings together works by students from art academies and universities across Europe, Japan and the United States. The exhibition is the Stockholm iteration of Surface Matter, an international exhibition project originating from a network of painting techniques teachers established in 2017. Following presentations at the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg in Germany and the University of Tsukuba in Japan, the project now arrives at the Royal Institute of Art.
At the center of the project is the dialogue between teachers and their participating students. Each institution brings its own approach to teaching materials and techniques, informed by different understandings of painting. The students’ works emerge from these different teaching contexts, while developing their own relationships to the materials and techniques involved.
The selection for Stockholm reflects a broad understanding of painting and its material possibilities. Oil, tempera and watercolor appear alongside natural pigments, beeswax, gelatin, textiles, unconventional supports and digital processes. What a material does, what an artist makes it do, and what remains visible of that process in the resulting work are questions that run through the exhibition. In some works, the material remains distinctly present; in others, the processes of preparation and application recede behind the image.
At the Royal Institute of Art, these questions connect closely to the teaching and practical work of the Material Institute (Materialinstitutet), where students investigate painting materials and methods by producing own paints, inks, crayons and pigments, as well as preparing painting supports. Pigments are extracted from plants or produced from minerals such as sand and stone, and the institute maintains its own cultivation of dye plants on Skeppsholmen. Through this work, students gain an understanding of the chemical, physical and historical properties of artistic materials. Producing these materials is itself a form of experimentation and can influence how students approach their work.
Presented together, the works in the exhibition invite a closer look at the relationship between what is taught, what is made, and what materials themselves allow.
Exhibiting Artists
Claudia Bartholomäus, Jannis Besen, Fey Bradt, Ruben Brückel, Valerie Buchholz, Mercedes Corvinus, Cosima Daum, Flor Delgadillo, Jakob Dirkes, Kim Gündel, Hiyoshi Ito, Seungyeon Jo, Karolin Kirchhof, Ellen Klüser, Carolin Kühn, Virginia Lorenzetti, Aya Maeda, Paul Robin Mader, Senshu Miya, Hina Miyazaki, Kaito Morita, Lucia Müller, Julian Nieschalk, Jacintha Nolte, Kirill Nikulin, Haruka Ogawa, Julia Paton, Katrina Pennington, Melanie Ramborger, Kurt Röll, Anna Schaumberger, Dorothea Schmelzer, Tim Schmiedel, Satu Soininen, Vinícius dos Santos, The Sketchbook Collective (Sami-Mohammed Ayed, Paul Höfer, Linnea Lüddens, Cassandra Brisch, Lisa Kling, Marvin Krieglstein, Leon Schneider, Kayra Sirin) with Bettina Scholz, Miriam Thomahsen, Michaela Vega Hansson, Robin Wienhold, Eva Wochner, Louis Wuttke, Vanessa Zaggilés.
Teachers and Institutions
Lisa Afken (University of Fine Arts Hamburg, DE), Boris Berber (State Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe, DE), Olivia Ann Carye-Hallstein (Tufts University, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, US), Maja Drachsel (University of Fine Arts Dresden (HfBK Dresden), DE), Mika Hoshi (University of Tsukuba, JP), Gesine Kikol (University of Duisburg-Essen, DE), Kathrin Kinseher (Academy of Fine Arts Munich, DE), Reni Mothes (Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig, DE), Barbara Rosengarth (University of the Arts Bremen, DE), Julia Rüther (Berlin University of the Arts, DE), Avery Gia Sophie Schramm (Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design, DE), Bettina Scholz (Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences, DE), Uwe Siemens (Braunschweig University of Art, DE), Kristina Janni Ståhl (Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm, SE), Annett Stenzel (Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg, DE), Caroline Streck (University of Siegen, DE), Yoshihiro Torigoe (Yokohama University of Art and Design, JP), Susanne Wurlitzer (Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle, DE).