Slow art

The contemporary movement Slow Art together with related trends such as Slow Food and Slow Travel, all promote a more peaceful lifestyle, protesting against the stress of modern society. Slow Art is about taking time but the movement also celebrates meticulous technique and careful craftmanship, gained after years of practice, failure, setbacks and occasional victory.

Carl Honoré writes in his book In Praise of Slowness (2004): “Slow art is a cultural revolution against the notion that faster is always better (…) Savoring the hours and minutes rather than just counting them. Doing everything as well as possible, instead of as fast as possible. It’s about quality over quantity (…)”

Anna Almqvist never thought she would ever fit into any movement or “ism”. But she was told that she was a “slow artist” and realized that there was in fact only one part of her life (including sleeping) where she did not have to battle with the clock – her time in the studio, alone with her art work.

Anna’s water color technique is certainly slow; after drawing for hours with pencil on the water color sheet, she builds the image by adding layers upon layers of thin paint, glaze with water over the area to make colors spread and blend, start over with thin layers, add tiny dots in thousands, glaze again, working her way towards the goal.

And the goal is not only a painting, good enough to finish, save and perhaps show for others some day. The time consuming work with the painting, in solitude, is a goal in itself.