Cecilia Ulfsdotter Klementsson

Biography

Artist Statement

Cecilia Ulfsdotter Klementsson is an artist based in Stockholm (SE) known for her large scale paintings of fleshy human bodies performing naked drag. Born in Stockholm 1990, Klementsson moved to Australia 2011 and received a Bachelor of Fine Art at Curtin University in Perth (AUS) 2015, later she moved to London and received a Painting Master at the Royal College of Art 2022.

Klementsson was represented by Galleri Duerr in Stockholm 2020-2025 and had two solo shows with them, Naked Drag 2021 and The Power of the Pose 2022. Klementsson has exhibited in London, Berlin, Leipzig (DE), Perth (AUS), Stockholm, Gävle (SE) and Kettinge (DK), with a total of four solo shows and over 30 group shows. Klementsson did a three month art residency at Pilotenkueche in Leipzig, October to December 2019.

Naked Dance

I paint and draw my own naked body dancing in iridescent fleshy layers, while deconstructing my own vulnerability as a human. My three passions - dance, draw and paint - shapes the process of my art practise. I repeat doing them in a cycle until certain overwhelming feelings, which ignited this process in the first place, are dealt with.

I am previously known for a project I called Naked Drag - where I painted naked human bodies performing drag through gender subversive poses, using the power of the pose alone to both identify and deconstruct gender roles. My practise is still centered around performing nude bodies, but instead of exploring how the bodies of others are perceived, I am now looking at my own body and its place within this world. What are my experiences of being a woman and an artist? I call this new project Naked Dance, using the term ‘naked’ both metaphorically and literally, as I reveal the vulnerability of my own being. 

DANCE: I start by choreographing a dance to a selected song with a lyrical poetry that resonates with feelings I am dealing with at that moment, and film myself as I dance it. In the first video I ever made within this project I chose the song Anti-Hero by Taylor Swift. The videos are the first artworks within the process, and the starting point for the coming paintings and drawings. I chose to work with nude bodies because there is a link between poetry, vulnerability and nakedness, poetry can reveal someones most inner secret thoughts, placing one in a vulnerable state, which can make one feel naked.

DRAWING: In the next step I make drawings from still images of myself dancing in the video. I draw myself naked in the drawings, although I am in underwear in the video. Since most social media’s community guidelines don’t allow nudity unless it is in art such as painting or drawing - art is a form of clothing. And I strip one layer of clothing off while I put another layer on, as I test the limits of how naked, or vulnerable, I can be.

PAINTING: I finish by creating a series of paintings from the combined drawings. I work in layers of one colour at a time when I paint or draw the human flesh. Through the layers I deconstruct what colours painted human skin is made of - and metaphorically what humans are made of. 

Cecilia Ulfsdotter Klementsson