Family life : the artist’s hidden secrets

A father and a mother are scarred in separate traffic accidents. In the family home, the effects of their trauma ring like an echo in the lives of their children. Several decades later, Lars Embäck explores and processes memories of a compli­cated childhood through writing, drawing and collage. In parallel, the past as it has been preserved in medical records, official transcripts, photographs and newspaper cuttings are open to him and the reader. Together, the two parts reflect each other like changeable repetitions in an elusive pattern. "Family Life" is the culmination of more than two decades of exhibitions, art­works and installations in which the artist Lars Embäck has tried to address the legacy of his difficult childhood and his relationship to his troubled parents.