Artwork: First Day at the Kitaby Emma Rytoft

About the Artist

Emma Rytoft is a Swedish-born artist who has been living and working in Berlin since 2012. Rytoft has a Master of Architecture from Lund University. She studied color theory, land art, and drawing at Paris La Villette and painting at Central St. Martins in London. With a focus on large-scale murals in public and private spaces and works on paper and canvas, she creates magical scenes that invite the viewer to reflect on our place, as humans, in the universe. Painting details from her daily life and including apparently unrelated objects, plants, and animals in these scenes, she addresses the concept that everything in the universe is one. Using bold black outlines and bright colors, she combines elements from surrealism with pop art sentiments such as irony and repetition to create her own language. In breaking the rules of perspective, she challenges the role of rational intelligence as superior and reminds us of the limitless imagination we possess as children. Rytoft has completed more than 20 murals in places such as Berlin, Malmö, Zürich, and Dubai. Her most recent projects include a 350 m2 mural covering the ground floor of an apartment building in Berlin and a mural for the street art gallery A-fence at Alexanderplatz. She has exhibited at galleries in London, New York, Shanghai, and Berlin and has worked on commissions for magazines such as Elle Décor. Her works are held in private collections around the world.