Glaserad stengodsrelief (Glazed Stoneware Relief)

Ulla Viotti must be one of Sweden’s most monumental artists, and her work is represented in museums and collections in dozens of countries. The reliefs at Hagabadet aquatic centre were one of her first public commissions.

From the corner of the splash pond for the very youngest children, Viotti’s rotund stone shapes rise to the ceiling. The stoneware wall looks like water-covered blue mussels on a rocky beach and bring to mind outings to the seaside.

The purpose of the splash pond is to help children become acquainted with water. The work is therefore designed to give children the opportunity to play freely with water, which should flow and splash over the soft ceramic forms and from the shower built into the relief.

Ulla Viotti began her artistic career as a traditional potter and artisan making household goods and small sculptures. In the 1960s, however, she left the world of applied art to focus on a less constrained creative process. She continued working in ceramics, but as a way to create abstract forms that seem inspired by rock formations, stones, clouds, human forms and archaeological remains.

Since the 1990s, Viotti has been working mainly with sculptures in brick, which feel very much like architecture. On Kvarntorpshögen outside of Kumla, you can find a very good example of the mysteriously indefinite constructions that characterize her later work.