Storm Philippa Clarén - Bäckahäst

Artist: Storm Philippa Clarén

In the folklore of southern Sweden, a terrifying creature known as the Brook Horse (Bäckahästen) haunted the waterways. This shapeshifting kelpie used its majestic beauty to lure young children toward the riverbanks. It would appear as a stunning white horse, tempting innocent children to climb onto its back.

The creature possessed a horrifying supernatural ability: its spine could stretch infinitely to accommodate as many children as possible. Once the final child climbed on, they would find themselves magically glued to its back. The horse would then plunge into the deep, dark currents, drowning its victims.

Parents used this chilling legend as a cautionary tale. It served as a powerful tool to scare children away from dangerous waters and prevent accidental drowning.

Storm Philippa Clarén’s distinctive visual language merges playful materiality with poetic form, primarily through sculptural work in ceramics. At the core of her practice lies an exploration of ornamentation, glossy surfaces and a visual idiom infused with both nostalgia and absurdity. Her pieces, often humorous and sometimes melancholic, invite viewers into spaces that hover between the everyday and the fantastical, between memory and material presence. She describes her attraction to shimmering objects as an intuitive impulse, a way to reclaim the value of the ornate, the extravagant and the frequently overlooked.

In contrast to the restraint of Scandinavian minimalism, Clarén proposes a language of abundance that is richly textured, tactile and boldly expressive. Through ceramic objects and installations, she crafts narratives of longing, guilt and reconciliation, recurring themes in her ongoing investigation of the human inner landscape. Her practice can be understood as a form of contemporary artifact making, where material, color and form come together to give shape to the shimmering terrain of the subconscious.

Storm Philippa Clarén (b. 1995) lives and works in Malmö. She holds a BFA from Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design (2020).