In the collections of the Gothenburg Museum of Art are a total of 18 illustrations to Snill.
The illustrations by the Norwegian Svein Nyhus (born 1962) for his wife Gro Dahle’s book Snill (2002, »Nice«) exemplify the digitally mixed media of the 2000s. Nyhus has built up images using pencil and watercolour combined with collage, but the final image—the original from which the book’s illustrations are taken—is a digital print. With the help of distorted proportions, parents become giants, reinforcing the physical distance between them and the girl Lussi. The psychological distance is blatant. Lussi is a well-behaved girl, as her tidy hair, dress with dazzling white collar, and polite smile all go to show. The checked furniture and stripy floor and walls, taken from a lined notepad, enhance the feeling of the girl’s well-adjusted and structured life. The sofa grid shows through Lussi herself, a premonition of her fate. The bluish-black, inexplicable form hovering above the family as they sit on the sofa appears in several of the pictures, breaking into their otherwise oh-so-controlled existence. When the story reaches its climax and Lussi kicks over the traces and exacts her revenge, the imagery explodes in tumultuous scenes in inky black. The new, living Lussi is grubby and picks her nose, a far cry from the type of girl who for many years had been the children’s book ideal.
Philippa Nanfeldt from The Collection Gothenburg Museum of Art, Gothenburg 2014
