Credits: Courtesy of the artist CFHill
Noah Beyene is currently presenting a solo show at CFHIll in Stockholm, from March 4 to April 4, 2026.
In the series SWEETISH, Beyene takes as his point of departure nineteenth-century Swedish painting and its influence on how Sweden has come to imagine itself. Artists such as Carl Larsson, Jenny Nyström, and Anders Zorn created images of everyday life, community, and national identity — from Midsummer celebrations and herring lunches to red wooden houses and summer landscapes. Beyene examines how these images continue to resonate today, and the tensions they carry within a contemporary Sweden in transition.
Through portraits and large-scale paintings of summery rituals, he portrays a Sweden often described as overly harmonious. His paintings contain both warmth and familiarity, but also an oversaturated idyll that begins to chafe. Light is central to the series: an intense yellow summer light permeates the paintings, dissolving the boundaries between people, landscapes, and traditions. The light draws the viewer in, yet simultaneously challenges the limits of the motifs.
View Exhibition
In the series SWEETISH, Beyene takes as his point of departure nineteenth-century Swedish painting and its influence on how Sweden has come to imagine itself. Artists such as Carl Larsson, Jenny Nyström, and Anders Zorn created images of everyday life, community, and national identity — from Midsummer celebrations and herring lunches to red wooden houses and summer landscapes. Beyene examines how these images continue to resonate today, and the tensions they carry within a contemporary Sweden in transition.
Through portraits and large-scale paintings of summery rituals, he portrays a Sweden often described as overly harmonious. His paintings contain both warmth and familiarity, but also an oversaturated idyll that begins to chafe. Light is central to the series: an intense yellow summer light permeates the paintings, dissolving the boundaries between people, landscapes, and traditions. The light draws the viewer in, yet simultaneously challenges the limits of the motifs.
View Exhibition
March 13, 2026
