WAY gallery Sthlm presents Hello, is it me I’m looking for, Maria Sandström’s second solo exhibition at WAY gallery following 2023’s Naked Ape.

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The exhibition departs from one of the most central questions of our time: who is it we are really trying to reach when we send out versions of ourselves?

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In Maria Sandström’s work, we encounter a self that constantly wavers between authenticity and performance, between sincerity and self-conscious parody. Her recurring monkey figures act as physical manifestations of a fragmented self — neither caricatures nor self-portraits, but metaphors for identity as role, construction, and commodity.

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The works are marked by visual precision and dramatic sensitivity. They contain a quiet crisis, an inner tension between the urge to express oneself and the fear of being seen through. The figures no longer seem to know whether they are posing to be noticed — or to avoid disappearing. With a graphic and narrative expression balancing humor, self-irony, and existential crisis, Sandström opens a space for self-critical reflection: perhaps we are all constantly in search of ourselves — but who is it we are truly hoping to find?

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Language is an integral part of Sandström’s artistic practice. Titles such as Do You Like Me? and Jag trodde vi hade en grej? (“I thought we had a thing?”) place the works within a contemporary tradition where humor and vulnerability coexist with sharp social analysis.