Artist Hanna Liden broke out on the New York art scene in 2006 with a series of photographs at the Whitney Biennial that depicted hooded, masked youth against bleak Scandinavian landscapes. The ritualistic Pagan currents set the tone for Liden’s dark images that led New York magazine to hail her as one of 10 2006 Biennial artists to watch.

Six years later, the Swedish New York-based artist is still thriving. Liden will open her latest show, “Ghost Town,” on May 2 at Maccarone Gallery. The exhibition is divided into five distinct series of photographs: self-portraits of Liden wearing various plastic bags as masks with her eyes peering out of two holes; black-and-white images of distorted objects; still lifes of various flowers that had been sprayed with black paint in vases of water; and shots of an ancient statue at Basilica Saint Denis in the Paris suburbs covered with carvings from people leaving their mark.

Liden’s work, her circle of of-the-moment downtown artist friends (Nate Lowman, Agathe Snow, and Dan Colen are among them), and her contribution to the fashion-art hybrid magazine Visionaire, intrigued us, so we asked her to divulge her favorite things and give us a taste of what’s behind her minimalist tomboy look. 

Click on the slide show to see Hanna Liden's Tastemaker picks.