Starwatchers, by Lars Widenfalk. Photo: Gabriel Urbánek
Artist of the Month, Sweden
An artistic marriage of stone and glass Artists Lars Widenfalk and Alena Matejka met 25 years ago. Although their materials, themes and working methods differ, they share an interest in narrative, memory, mythology and the relationship between human beings and nature.
Follow the stairs that lead into the room and out of it. Like our lives.”
By Malin Norman
Since meeting artist Alena Matejka 25 years ago, Lars has also been working extensively with glass. “Alena was invited to participate in a Swedish/Czech sculpture symposium at KKV-B, an artist-run workshop in northern Bohuslän. The symposium lasted a month and it so happened that I was there at the same time, working on my large solo exhibition at Röda Sten,” says Lars. “And Alena introduced me to the fantastic world of glass.”
Swedish artist and sculptor Lars Widenfalk works primarily with stone and comes from the tradition of figurative sculpture. He is behind the famous black stone violin Blackbird, the only one of its kind in the world. Constructed to the designs of the iconic Stradivarius violin, it uses the artist’s own technical solutions. “I have always worked figuratively but with elements of architectural forms, such as stairs and house constructions,” says Lars. “My main theme is time; time passing, time gone, the future. Stone, 78
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Issue 193
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August 2026
and especially granite, is for me a carrier of time.” Perhaps you can see in his archaeological studies a context where Lars uses fragments and the raw stone surface as an indicator of time. An eroded face that he has just dug out of time – from his own universe of experiences and dreams. “The beauty is as much in the stone as the traces of the chisel,” he continues. “My large house constructions make both me and the viewer enter the room that the sculpture forms with its four pillars and gables.
Glass and its optical transformation
Alena is a Czech sculptor working primarily with glass and stone, which she often combines with metal, organic materials or found objects. “I’m interested in the