The surfaces of Ida Ekblad’s idiosyncratic paintings simultaneously draw you in and push you out. Vibrant colors, applied in expressionistic brushstrokes in oil, or loaded with a self-made combination of industrial paint with the chemical commonly called “puff,” create a relief-like texture the viewer is tempted to touch. Yet, the artificiality of Ekblad’s gaudy palette and her chaotic allover compositions – a visual ­approximation of our hyper-retinal culture – are equally startling. This tension is also palpable in her first edition for TEXTE ZUR KUNST: Floral elements are set against a predominantly green backdrop and intersected by three vertical strips of a fleshy rhombus pattern. On top of the digital print based on the painting “GRIME VIGILANCE” (2024), Ekblad has monoprinted her trademark “SR” in metallic silver. Underlining her work’s affinities with Pop Art, it references the artist’s label, Schloss Records, and her earlier Oslo-based exhibition space of the same name. Strategies of addition and subtraction, the rearranging and sampling of one’s own work, are not only central to Ekblad’s painterly process but also to how she approaches sculpture, poetry, and exhibition-making. This DIY ethos prevails amid international institutional shows, at Kunsthaus Zürich and Museo Tamayo, among ­others. It likewise influences Ekblad’s use of artisanal techniques such as glass painting, sand cast-bronze and hand-made glass. Indicative of the artist’s background in street culture, she conceives of her signature “I.E.” as a “cap,” graffiti slang for a gesture slashing someone else’s work. In “FOOTSHOOTER” (2025), Ekblad doubles down on this logic: first capping her own painting with “SR” and then signing it with her initials.