Madeleine Aleman

I believe that inner peace and outer peace goes hand in hand. Being an artist is for me a statement for peace. In my lifestyle I need to choose carefully how to live my life to stay in harmony with an occupation that holds a lot of cultural capital, but often not so much money.

Like people in general I have two fighting sides within me and tend to be either in one or another in periods. One Madeleine is earth-bound and enjoys partying, adventure and social life. She wants to live in Barcelona and feel the cosmopolite pulse, get new impulses and meet all sorts of people. The other Madeleine is mainly in a spiritual state of mind, working on her personal growth, in a pretty ascetic and introverted lifestyle, with yoga practice and high level of consciousness about health and environment. She wants to live in the countryside, sit on a rock and glance at the lake. Both of these sides are absolutely dependent on each other. To reach inner peace integration is needed.

I just turned 50 years and been working on balance, integration and a holistic view of life since I was 16. I think that’s what we all need to do, mankind, work on inner peace and outer peace by integration. To Love ourselves and one another will lead to peace and save our world.

In my art practice I want to integrate things that usually don’t go together. In my kaleidoscope paintings The Star boy in a traditional Swedish custom is placed together with an Arabic ornament. East meets west, different dogmas and beliefs put together and create a new pattern, a new perspective.



When I paint the same kaleidoscope in inverted colours I create a diptych that together becomes “nothingness”. In my objects that mainly consist of recycled material and ready -mades I also strive to integrate different cultures. In my multi-cultic objects I put typical touristic things together into new objects. By spray-painting these objects grey with gold introduced slightly on the top the objects become equal to one another.

To work with art makes me feel more peaceful within. Since I, besides being an artist, also am a teacher in arts and trained as an art therapist I’ve seen many people gain peace through their art practice. I really get upset when the Swedish politicians, in spite of latest science on the necessity of using both brain halves, want to minimize art from high school. When I worked as a teacher in a preparing art school one of my students said:

“Instead of having military service for all men in Sweden I think they shall send everyone for one year to art school. The world would be so much better then!”