Magdalena Nilsson creates art from Tarkett's circular materials in the Stockholm-based showroom

Magdalena Nilsson creates art from Tarkett's circular materials in the Stockholm-based showroom

30th September 2021

The Swedish artist Magdalena Nilsson’s new piece An abstract on landscape is a 70 m² floor installation made exclusively from post-use recyclable Tarkett vinyl and linoleum materials. This colourful installation has been showcased at Tarkett Ateljé during the Stockholm Creative Edition design week (September 23–29) and will stay for a couple of months.

To celebrate Circular Selection, a collection that gathers all Tarkett’s post-use recyclable vinyl, textile and linoleum products, Tarkett is launching a series of creative collaborations to show the design possibilities of circular materials.

The series begins with Magdalena Nilsson, a Swedish artist with a background in ceramics, who is best known for her sculptures and tactile landscape imagery. The collaboration between Magdalena Nilsson and Tarkett resulted in an Abstract on Landscape, a 70 m2 floor installation, where an intarsia-like image made with linoleum and vinyl evokes the feeling of a cliffscape and its reflection in water. For Nilsson, whose mediums have primarily been porcelain and clay, it was the first time she had worked with linoleum and vinyl.

Creating a temporary art installation feels a lot better when the materials are circular and can be sent back to become new floors. Most other materials are linear and cannot be used again in that way” says Magdalena Nilsson.

The colours are inspired by cliffs and the artist’s recent explorations of aquarelle.

If you think of a rock, you may think of earth tones and grey. But when you look closely, there are so many other colours. The cliffscape’s palette also varies; the sun sets and for a short while, the surface of the rock turns pink. Look even closer, under an electron microscope, and the rock explodes with colour. With this composition, I wanted to show my observation of a particular landscape” Magdalena Nilsson continues.

The installation is executed on site by Tarkett’s technical team, who calculated, cut and scribed 40 different colours into an exact, and durable, composition.