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About my work
Curiosity is probably the main force for me to make my next painting. How will one experience the painting if it is the same size but a bluish black instead of red? How or what will one feel? The only way to experience the differences is to make a new painting with those changed qualities. Simplicity? The Norwegian philosopher Olav Østensjø Øvrebø writes in the essay ”…an angel through the room”) - “Simplicity can be provocative: The sneaking suspicion of being underrated, of being lulled into a streamlining way of thinking that robs the world of its complexity and wealth of nuances. The simplicity in Lars Strandh’s art is not like that. The paintings may not even be as simple as they immediately appear to be or feel like. With a closer look one quickly discovers that there is a preciseness to the work done here, this is an artist who has put brushes and palette to use and created a meticulous and patient work.” The paintings are usually built up by one or two colors in several layers as a ground. For the following 8-14 layers I use translucent paint and a thin brush. The traces of the brush strokes emphasize the identity of the paintings as painted paintings. Each stroke is running horizontally over the whole painting from left to right and from right to left. The different shades are also different in glossiness and matteness. It gives an uneven layer of paint (strokes), reflecting the small difference of colour-shades and light, and hence, gives life to the painted part. Because of this complexity a painting will change very much in different light and also seen from different angles. Finding the right color can be a long process. The reasons for choosing a specific color are, for me, more a subconscious matter. There is a certain quality in the color-shade I look for, but I can’t explain what that quality is or for what reason. It is a decision of experience. Possibilities. I believe there are two ways (at least) of viewing my paintings. The first one is purely formal – stretcher, canvas and paint - how it is made. But I really like the possibilities in the atmospheric quality in the painted fields. As the Norwegian freelance curator Per Gunnar Tverbakk writes about my work: “It is possible to lose oneself in the spacious areas suggestive of water and air. The illusion is within reach for anyone willing to see it. As viewer, you can shift perspectives, recall and revoke the mirage. You can turn the “perception switch” back and forth, depending on what you wish to see.Neither perspective takes priority over the other. The two ways of viewing the paintings are equally weighted, producing an ambiguity the artist does not want to clear up. The artist paints his works with a “double brush”, thereby declaring a pragmatism that releases him from the tenets of any manifesto. It is a language of having it both ways, which identifies him with current artistic realities.” The last year I have been working on linen canvas (Catalogue “Lars Strandh – New works on linen”). It is, for me at least, a huge change from the white cotton canvas. The colors interact different with the browner canvas. It gives possibilities to find "new" color shades and also reinvestigate the color shades I thought I knew. I have also in many ways left the work with composition/anticomposition and the color follows the size of the stretcher with just a thin border raw canvas on the surface. These are paintings of experience. Reproduction, photography or slides can never replace or capture them. It is only through presence, together with the paintings, that you truly can take part in them. Lars Strandh 2010
© Copyright Lars Strandh, 2010 |
