Autofictions

Maria Erikson’s multi-part work stems from French philosopher Georges Didi-Huberman’s concept of empreinte, which links printmaking and sculpture through the trace left by touch or pressure. Her process involves casting and imprinting, using materials such as limestone, wax, gum arabic, paper, and pigment to create forms that retain the memory of contact. These elements become metaphors for the body and for the fluid nature of identity – both revealed and concealed. The distinction between the matrix and impression begins to blur. Each piece carries a sense of reflection, as if the materials themselves are thinking through the act of their making. In this merging of form and trace, presence and absence, Erikson asks what is left behind and what remains hidden. The body is not only marked through material traces but also becomes a metaphor for identity in constant transformation – concealed, revealed, and reimagined through process.