Gunnar Tryggmo
Wonder from afar
Although he lives more than 4,000 miles away from the American West, Swedish painter Gunnar Tryggmo relates deeply to the wildlife of the West, particularly the critters in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Bison, elk, moose, pronghorn, waterfowl—each one is a new opportunity to connect with the region and its iconic inhabitants.
Tryggmo, who lives in the coastal village of Viken, Sweden, which overlooks Denmark from across the Øresund strait, is currently showing his newest wildlife paintings in The Wild Wonder, his first solo show in the United States, at Turner Fine Art in Jackson Hole. Not only will the works feature wildlife subjects, but each one will be done in watercolor, an unforgiving medium that Tryggmo has been working in for the last five years.
“It can be very difficult to work with watercolors. You can fix small things, but if you make a big mistake you can’t fix the whole painting. At one point it’s best to just start over,” the painter says. “I was first introduced to it by an uncle, who was also an artist. He encouraged me from a very early age and helped me get a good start. He also taught me to use the right paper and colors. It’s interesting that in the United States watercolor is still not that common. Most shows seem to be 90 percent oil or acrylic paint. In Europe there is a
long history with watercolor paintings and it is much more common.”
Tryggmo’s paintings are quite minimalist works that mostly focus on the animal and not so much on its habitat. He leaves large pieces of the paper unpainted as focus is drawn to the animal, its pose and the delicate paint that swirls around it. “Sometimes the most difficult part is knowing when to stop. I’ll get comments on social media telling me to stop now. Or my wife will come in and tell me she thinks it’s finished,” he says. “It’s easy to kill a painting by overworking it.”
The new show will feature a magnificent elk image, Earth Tones, as well as the moose piece Out of Nowhere in which a moose’s head is proudly presented in a light wash of paint that gently colors the paper. The works primarily feature animals in the American West, but also some wildlife that exist in both the United States and Sweden, such as sea birds and ravens.
“I first met Gunnar at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Museum, where we were both exhibiting in the international Birds in Art juried exhibition. One afternoon, the artsts were sharing their field journals, and I was so impressed with Gunnar’s. They had the scholarly approach of a naturalist, but the astute renderings of a very practiced artist,” says Turner Fine Art owner, and fellow wildlife painter, Kathryn Mapes Turner. “Traditional watercolor is a very challenging medium because of its unpredictable nature and transparency—it is not possible to undo a misstep. This is why Gunnar’s commitment to painting in this medium is so impressive. The result of his commitment are pieces that are both bold and sensitive, painstakingly rendered with a distinctive lightness of touch and spontaneity.”
The Wild Wonder continues through March 29 in Jackson Hole.
For a direct link to the exhibiting gallery go to