2009-10-08

Since we live on a planet with many nuances both regarding form and colours it is interesting to play with the Nature or the Landscape. As a painter I have a great opportunity to do what pleases me on the canvas. But of course there are many other ways for artists to play with nature.

Every autumn in September on a beautiful meadow called “ Yttre Vång” and in the surrounding woods we use to arrange an art happening when the evening comes. We are about 20 artists of different ages. We rise two big tents, and fill them with film, poetry, music and other art forms, but most of the art is outside the tent ,in the forest, out in the dark.

To find it you have to trust the light we can offer. You are welcome to take a look at the pictures we have collected.

Please go to: Konsthändelse på Yttre Vång.

2004

All the thoughts and feelings that I will present are woven into the paintings. But I am aware, that although I believe that the paintings can stand for themselves, it is perhaps interesting for you to touch the basic view regarding my own creative process.

I always ground my paintings with black. Black is "nothing", and nothing is a good start for "something". Darkness is known to be frightening and dangerous. It is the antithesis of Manifestation but can still be bought in a tube, and although it is nothing I have to pay for it, and the tube is rather heavy. That's the wonder of living in a manifested reality that vibrates so slow that even "nothing" has a weight and a price.

Since I work a lot with black I have noticed that there are two kinds of darkness. Darkness without desire feels frightening, but with desire it is loaded with a will to create. It looks the same but it feels different. Darkness has been judged to host all kind of evil, but I prefer warm darkness rather than cold unloving light.

Almost every day I take a walk in the forest, and the way I paint depends on what I see and feel during these walks. With my senses I can see and smell what is above the ground. What I can perceive I can paint, but I can also paint what I feel. I can not see the roots under the ground, but I can feel them. That's why I have done "paintings from the underground". Feeling beyond the outer appearance of manifestation and go "down" to the essential magnetic nature of creation is a way to be aware of the difference between perceiving and projecting.

People sometimes ask me how my paintings can be so full of bright colors when I paint from the underground. - "Isn't it dark there?" - It is, when I only use my senses, I can only see black and gray there. So I have total freedom to feel whatever colors I want to, but gold, red and orange are dominant underground-colors.

In my paintings I want to show that all colors can relate, but my main focus right now is on black. I always leave a part unfinished, and since the grounding of the painting is black, there is still an open space left. When everything is full, there is no room for new colors to enter. The result is either chaos or control. Control means regression. When control takes over, chaos waits around the corner, and Will must open up for more space (darkness) to enter. This has been judged against as a destructive action in society, but it is not. Instead it creates the necessary conditions for progression.

Is Art being made a prostitute, serving bored people that constantly need something new? Do artists have any power over art-life, or is somebody else pulling the strings? I just wonder, because I do not feel at home in the world of art. Painting as an artform has been declared dead, by those who have put themselves in a position to govern art. Especially paintings related to nature. I don't really care. For me nature is still a book with many pages left unread, just like the chapter about colors role in creation.