Artwork: Sten Dunérs’ stone labyrinth

Sten Dunér painted many landscapes and gardens with surrealist elements, inserting various foreign objects (usually spheres) into the images. He wanted to question our perception of reality. The role of the unexpected spheres is to irritate the viewer and force us to realise that the image is not as straightforward as first thought.

The balance between reality and unreality is often a strong feature of his paintings, which are often ambiguous and open to interpretation. Sten Dunér was previously a professor of art theory at Konstfack (University of Arts, Crafts and Design) in Stockholm and is represented at the Nationalmuseum (Sweden’s Museum of Art and Design), Moderna Museet (Modern Art Museum) in Stockholm and Skissernas Museum (Museum of Artistic Process and Public Art) in Lund. In 1992, Sten Dunér redesigned Åbroparken in Värnamo using colours and shapes taken from his paintings.

In selected places there were smooth, blue stones, and a glass ball on a white plinth reflected the surroundings. They no longer exist, but the stone labyrinth in the centre of the park can still be experienced. It is modelled on the famous labyrinth at Knossos in Crete. The large stone in the centre was previously illuminated, giving it a mysterious appearance.