Camilla Engström (b. 1989, Örebro, Sweden) lives and works in Los Angeles, dividing her time between California and Sweden. A self-taught artist, Engström studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology in 2012 before working as a fashion assistant in New York. Encouraged by the enthusiastic response to drawings of her alter ego “Husa” — a voluptuous female figure whose name means “housemaid” in Swedish — Engström left the fashion industry to pursue painting full time.
Engström’s practice is rooted in intuition and meditation. She does not work from preparatory sketches, instead allowing imagery to emerge organically through a daily meditative discipline. Her paintings often merge female bodies with landscapes, flowers, and celestial forms; suns become lactating breasts, hair transforms into rivers, and reclining nudes dissolve into desert terrain. Through this synthesis of body and environment, Engström presents nature as sensual, generative, and deeply interconnected with human experience.
Her work draws on Surrealism and post-Impressionist Synthetism, employing flattened perspective, bold outlines, and saturated color. While her paintings can be read in relation to contemporary ecological discourse, they resist didacticism. Instead, Engström foregrounds reverence and tenderness toward the natural world, suggesting a vision of harmony, vulnerability, and strength. The spiritual dimension of her practice resonates with artists such as Hilma af Klint, whose reconstructed studio on Adelsö Engström has been invited to undertake a residency.
Engström has presented solo exhibitions internationally, including with Carl Kostyál in London, Stockholm, Shanghai, and St. Moritz; Over the Influence in Paris, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, and Bangkok; König Galerie, Berlin; and Make Room, Los Angeles. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Albertz Benda, Los Angeles; Timothy Taylor, New York; and international art fairs including KIAF Seoul, NADA New York, and Market Art Stockholm. Her work is held in public collections including the Whale Art Museum.