
Ishtar Bäcklund Dakhil
Stockholm, Sweden7 prints, from £42
Ishtar Bäcklund Dakhil is a Swedish illustrator and visual artist with an MFA in Visual Communication from Konstfack. Her picture books have been published by Natur och Kultur and Seven Stories Press, and have received a BolognaRagazzi Award and a New York Public Library Best Book designation. She leads workshops around the world where personal stories are expressed through visual and narrative storytelling and grow into collectively made artworks. Her originals are hand painted in watercolour, natural pigments and mixed media.
Portrait: Sebastian Lundmark


Prints by Ishtar Bäcklund Dakhil
7 prints
Cities, plants and imagined worlds
Ishtar's images move between closely observed details and imagined worlds. Stockholm's towers and waterfront buildings share a collection with layered leaves, geometric landscapes and an aeroplane gliding above a valley that can pass for a bird. Small marks and shifting colours give you plenty to notice up close.
There's range here without losing her feel for colour. Frukt & Grönt brings a busy gathering of greens, reds and yellows to a kitchen wall; Surfer with Orange Sun uses fewer shapes and stronger blocks of colour. Creature Among Blue Leaves rewards a quieter spot where you can spend time with its details.
At a glance
- Based in
- Stockholm, Sweden
- Formats
- A2, and 50 × 70 cm for Month of May and Creature Among Blue Leaves, and A3 for Flight Over the Valley and Surfer with Orange Sun, and 50 × 50 cm for Desert Circles
- In the shop
- 7 prints
- Framing
- Unframed, or wood, black or white
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