New Experimental Work

I have spent a few art-days in Stockholm, visiting galleries and museums. Inspiring! I am now back in the studio and continuing the experimentation with new ideas:

This piece is called Forgiveness and is placed on the floor. Oil on plywood, 38 x 173 cm

The painting below was made in 2009 and now I have added thin fabric in front of the painting, creating a feeling of a very subtle veil. The painting is 160 x 100 cm. I don’t know what to call this work yet. Maybe I should call it A Time of Mourning…

Abstract work & Ylva Ceder

On Thursday evening, 29 March, an exhibition with Ylva Ceder at Wetterling Gallery in Stockholm opens. I will be there. This is the piece we bought a few years ago.

Ronnies Stuga, oil on birch plywood, 80 x 240 cm (a great painting!)

I have been playing in the studio, trying to free myself from old habits. I don’t know if it will lead to anything, but it has been fun.

Studio Play, spray paint on paper, 55 x 55 cm with the oak frame.

Hope and despair, oil on plywood, 43 x 63 cm.

Pain, oil on OSB (oriented strand board), 140 x 100 cm

Taking great risks in the studio…

I have spent the past few days re-arranging the studio and experimenting with abstract work, etc. I have felt a great need to take new steps. The big question I keep coming back to is What do I really want? Do I want to get a big and fancy gallery to pick me up and market me? I am becoming increasingly uninterested in that. I am afraid I would be forced to limit my work and there would be expectations to produce “more of the same”. Lately I have felt an insecurity in being too diverse in the sizes and the pictures I make. But at the same time I am consistently using the wooden structures in my work. This has led me on to experiment more with the material. I will show some results soon.

Here is what I did to Two Strike:

I closed my eyes and went wild. If you don’t like it, too bad. It is too late. It is too late for Two Strike and his people also. I have named this painting Two Strike Up Close, but it could have been named It Is Too Late For Two Strike. I will probably change the name.

Next strike at Two Strike

Another session and it looks like this:

Size 80 x 60 cm. Oil on plywood (so far…).

A first strike at Two Strike

I have started on another interesting face. It is fun to work with faces of old people.

A wise man

My dear Hollow Horn Bear is now completed. Some sanding of the painted surface and then one layer of glossy varnish.

Hollow Horn Bear

My unknown friend from the past, Hollow Horn Bear, is watching us from the grain of the old wooden planks. He is not judging, not being angry, just silently asking with his wise eyes: where are we going, what are we doing? It always saddens me to read about the North American Indians, but I also wonder if their fate was inevitable? What can I do today to avoid the same thing happening again, somewere else, maybe right here?

Back in the studio…

I am finally back in the studio again, preparing for the Easter exhibition. I have been cleaning out old stuff in our house, getting it ready for selling it, and I found an old board of some kind, maybe a crude table top, or one side of a sturdy old crate, I don’t know. But I decided to paint another Indian on it. This man’s name was Hollow Horn Bear.

The size of the piece is 75 x 65 cm and this is just the start…