In 2002 I was living in London. One day I was in the garden, painting a shelf for my son, Nils. He had asked me to paint it in gold. As I was painting, I was drawn by the reflections of the sun in the tin of paint.
I took some pictures of it but soon forgot about it. A week or so later when the pictures had been developed, I was pleasantly surprised. I thought they were interesting. I wasn't sure that it was a good idea to photograph paint. It seemed possibly too stupid or too basic. Who would be interested in pictures of paint, I thought. A few weeks passed and I couldn't get the thought of paint pictures out of my head. I mentioned it to my friend Curtis, and he thought it sounded interesting. He said I should do it, so I decided to have a go.

I bought some cans of paint. Some water based paint, some oil based paint, some matt, some glossy, in various colours. I poured them on a white paper and started taking pictures. I was playing around with it for a few years when I had time. I later made a book with some of those early paint pictures. The title of the book was Safari. However, even if the book had been made, I continued to photograph paint sometimes over the years. I wasn't bored of it yet. In 2019, living in Sweden again, I decided to have another try. A more serious try. In nature with an open sky and no buildings on the sides.

I set up a table on a quiet little hill out by the golf course where I play. Almost no one goes to that spot so my set-up was usually untouched. Later I was using three tables at a time. On the table I put a board. Usually a foam board. On the board I pour paint. It's important that the table is perfectly level. Otherwise the paint flows to the side. My aim is to pour the paint in a perfectly round circle. When it's windy it's tricky. The board always has to be tightly secured with clamps to the table so it doesn't move. I learned how to make a shield with a foam board to pour the paint perfectly even in windy conditions. It mustn't rain because I don't like what the water does to the paint. Water makes the paint go into shapes I don't like. I just want it to be as simple as possible. Sometimes I succeed to make a perfectly even round shape but many times I fail. It's always a fine line knowing when I should let it be even when it's not perfect and when to stop to start all over again. I learned how to get better at pouring paint without dripping but even though I'm better at it now I never learned how to become perfect at it. All the preparation requires a lot of concentration. I make one pour for each board. The boards are one hundred by seventy centimeters.
Before pouring I write the date on the back of the board and I take a picture of the date before pouring in order to know which board each picture belongs to. It would be impossible to know otherwise because fresh paint looks totally different to dry paint. I have kept all the boards except the ones that were ruined by the weather.

When everything is prepared; the cameras loaded (one with black and white film, one with colour film), the board fastened with a clamp in each corner with the date on the back, the date photographed; it's time to pour the paint. I'm waiting for the right moment to pour the paint. I look at the sky in order to time it right, to get a good light. Sometimes when I wait for the right moment it starts to rain. In that case I have to start the whole procedure all over again because if the board is wet there is no use to pour the paint as it won't hold the circle. When it feels like it's the right moment, I pour the paint. At first I have to be quick. I want to take pictures straight after the pour because at first the paint is expanding and changing shape. I have to be alert to the changes in the light, the reflections of the sky and the shape.
When I move the camera a centimeter up or down or to the sides, the picture changes completely. When the paint has settled I usually take a break to hit some golf balls. Later I come back to the paint for some more pictures. When the paint has dried, I usually let each board lie in the grass for a couple of weeks because it's still changing which means that I might take some more pictures.

This is the third show of paints.

Anders Edström (b. 1966, Frösö, Sweden) is a Swedish photographer and filmmaker known for his understated, observational approach to both mediums. After moving to Paris in 1990, he began a long collaboration with fashion designer Martin Margiela, becoming a key visual contributor to Maison Martin Margiela (MMM). In 1993, he started working with Purple magazine, becoming one of its most influential photographers, with work later appearing in Self Service, AnOther, Dazed & Confused, Index, Dune, M le Monde, and Modern Matter.

Edström has shot campaigns for Miu Miu, Jil Sander, MM6, Loewe, Prada, and others. His photographs have been exhibited at major institutions, including the Centre Georges Pompidou and the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris, the ICA in Boston, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Fotomuseum Winterthur, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, and the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt.

In publishing, he co-authored Buckshot Lexicon with Jeff Rian (Purple Books, 2001), and released two acclaimed monographs with Steidl/Mack in 2004. Later works include Safari (Nieves, 2010), Hanezawa Garden (MACK, 2015), and Shiotani (AKPE, 2021), a 752-page chronicle of life in a remote Japanese village over 23 years. In 2024 he published Enköping, 1986 with AKPE.

Since 2001, Edström has collaborated with filmmaker C.W. Winter on several films. Their debut, One Plus One 2 (2003), featured avant-garde guitarist Derek Bailey. Their 2009 film The Anchorage won the Golden Leopard at Locarno and was named Best Independent/Experimental Film of the Year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Their eight-hour feature The Works and Days (of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin) (2020) won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival and received major awards in Spain and Mexico, along with recognition from the LAFCA.

Anders Edström currently lives and works in Stockholm.