Artist’s Tour – Sigrid Holmwood

Sigrid Holmwood is a Swedish-British artist, educated in the UK but now based in Malmö.

Holmwood has created works about the witch trials that took place in Malmö in the 1500s and has researched folklore and the colonial histories surrounding the dye plants she employs. Monica Sjöö is a source of inspiration for Holmwood, being one of the original “batik witches” who developed a feminist spirituality as a form for activism and artistic creation.

Sjöö lived in Bristol in the West of England where there are many prehistoric earthworks and monuments. These womb-like structures appear in her paintings and point to her significant influence on the Goddess movement, which sought to counter the patriarchal tendencies within Judaism and Christianity by turning to pre-Christian history. Her figurative paintings went against the trends of the art world at the time but are seen as fresh and relevant today. As one of the mothers of feminism, her perspectives on women’s bodily autonomy and the environment are more relevant than ever.