Kanalväljare, 1967, Acrylic on panel, 60 x 80 cm.

Ulla Wiggen (b. 1942, Stockholm) is one of Sweden’s most singular artists, whose career spans six decades of meticulous and visionary painting. In the 1960s, when few could foresee the digital age to come, she turned her attention to the interior of electronic devices, rendering resistors, transistors, and circuit boards with the patience and precision of a portraitist. These works anticipated a world that had not yet arrived.

From the late 1970s, Wiggen set aside painting to train and work as a psychotherapist, a vocation she pursued for decades. It was after Moderna Museet approached her in 2013 about an exhibition that her commitment to painting was fully reignited. The hiatus, in retrospect, reads less as an interruption than as a continuation: whether through art or psychotherapy, her subject has always been the human being. Her practice has since traced the body, from the circuitry of electronics to human portraits, to detailed depictions of inner organs, and in later years, to the intricate landscape of the iris.

Since her return to painting full time following the Moderna Museet solo in 2013, Wiggen's ascent has been swift and international. Her iris works were shown at the Venice Biennale in 2022, she received the Prins Eugen Medal – one of Sweden's most prestigious artistic distinctions – in 2023, and her retrospective Outside / Inside opened at Fridericianum in Kassel in 2024. Her exhibition Passage has since toured the Nordics from EMMA in Finland to Västerås konstmuseum, closing most recently at Mjellby konstmuseum.

Welcome to a conversation between Ulla Wiggen and Firestorm partner Michael Storåkers on May, 12:15–13:00 in room 350 at Stockholm School of Economics, Sveavägen 65.

Lunch will be served.

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Firestorm Talks is a series of talks exploring the visibility and value of women artists, both in society and the art market.

Firestorm Foundation is a non-profit initiative founded by Cristina Ljungberg in 2021, dedicated to highlighting female and nonbinary artists for a more inclusive art world. Beginning in 2025, the Foundation funds initiatives at SSE to advance knowledge and promote equality for female and nonbinary artists, including seminars, Master's thesis scholarships, and donations to the SSE Permanent Collection.

Firestorm Foundation holds four works by Wiggen in its collection, spanning circuit boards, irises, and inner organs.