ABSTRACT
Alfelt described mountains as a “border between real and unreal, where heaven and earth meet.” Alfelt’s attempts to develop an art open to diverse and multifaceted readings beyond personal experience or identity were hindered by the gendered attitudes toward painterly expression that would define her work in limited ways for decades to come. Alfelt makes clear in numerous interviews that she saw herself as an “expressionist” artist. Alfelt produces spontaneous and expressive painting, above all during the 1940s, but certain aspects of her work challenge the brutality and aggression that characterizes that of Jorn and the Dutch artists, especially Constant and Appel.
