'Chaos Carry Me Gently' by Kaja Stumpf
Blue Shop Gallery for London Gallery Weekend
3rd - 27th June 2026
(PV 3rd June 6-8pm)
'In Conversation : Artist Talk' Kaja Stumpf and Ocki, BSG Director | Saturday 6th June 12pm
Kaja Stumpf (b.1987) is a Norwegian artist living and working in London. She gained her MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins, UAL in 2022. Stumpf’s recent work examines memory, self-representation and the mind-body connection. She explores the idea of selective memory and cognitive bias as a means of self-preservation and through painting, visualises the rumination of potential scenarios between past and present. Utilising staged images and the photographic family archive, she crops the scene and alters the colours to create a sense of delayed familiarity. Kaja Stumpf has exhibited at London Art Fair and Saatchi Gallery in 2025 and has a growing international collector base. This is Stumpf’s third solo show after 'Only Tears Can Quench These Flames' in 2025 and ‘Pleasure is a far away land’ at BSG in 2024. Stumpf’s work is in collections internationally and in 2025 her work ‘Traveler, There Is No Path (Veien Blir Til Mens Man Går)’ was acquired by FAMM Female Artists of Mougin’s Museum. Kaja Stumpf is represented by Blue Shop Gallery.
Kaja Stumpf's third solo show at Blue Shop Gallery brings together works made between 2024 and 2026, exploring themes of selfhood, suffering and loss. In Gallery 1, light falls across warm backs and sparkles on young faces, evoking hope, ambition and possibility. Gradually, however, the mood shifts towards yearning and solitude.
As the exhibition unfolds, the surface of the canvas becomes increasingly disrupted by gestures of violence and pain. As you descend into Gallery 2, a palpable female rage emerges alongside a darkness that seems to engulf the figure, though she remains caught in the act of pulling herself free.
Stumpf paints these works in her own image, using the figure as both subject and vessel for experiences of vulnerability, endurance and transformation.
“The work has evolved as exercises of surrender. Letting go of outdated beliefs and the fear of not being in control, and to trust in a power beyond that which I am aware.
Learning to have faith in the process and the path unknown may reveal itself - it cannot be brought to light by brute force or rigid rules.The pursuit of the how and the why, not for the sake of the answer, but for the valleys and peaks of the questions themselves, and the emotions that flow through you as you observe them, rather than judge. The silence after crying and the acceptance after anger, plants a seed for rebirth - the calm aftermath is neutral ground.
Chaos can be volatile, when its course is obstructed, but to move within the eye of the storm is the path of least resistance. Contrasts and opposites exist naturally and simultaneously; Where there is light there is darkness, where there is good there is bad. This body of work is an attempt to face my shadows and accept my contradictions.”
-
Down below she lies in darkness. My protector, the ugly I am scared to face.
As I open the door, light falls upon her twisted figure, a witness of destruction, helpless and hopeless in a world on fire.
While embers fly I let tears flow, sorrow crash upon my shores.
I pray they wash away the pain that looks like heavy cysts on the texture of my soft fabric.
Show me how to hold uncertainty while fear screams for attention.
Take my hand while sadness consumes me. Sit with me so I’m less alone. Chaos carry me gently, for this time I will not run.
- Kaja Stumpf 2026
hello@blueshopcottage.com for all press & sales enquiries