Lena Gustafson (previously featured here) is an Oakland, California-based multidisciplinary artist and the co-founder of Night Diver Press. Featuring figures and abstract representations, Gustafson’s images center around the human body. “Many of the subjects in my work simultaneously inhabit the interior and exterior spaces of a body,” she explains. “This speaks both to how the spirit can feel larger than the boundaries of a body and also to how our private inner worlds have an affect on the rest of the world around us.

I am more interested in conveying the experience of living within a body than the observation of someone else. To me it is important to have the figures I paint in some sort of motion. It’s rare for anything to be fixed, still, or fit into one category, so I try to show multiple states of being in one frame. The grids and non-figurative paintings serve as a reminder of time, observation and evolution. Representing the figure has always been central for me because I believe the body itself is a vessel for all information; its many complexities and contradictions.”

See more from Lena Gustafson below!