English Summary 1-2015

Per Henrik Eriksson
by Håkan Bull
For years, Per Henrik Eriksson had a full-time job and painted in his spare time. In 1990 he attended the Gerlesborg School of Arts. This course kick-started his ambition to become a professional artist and two years ago he quit his conventional job. For the triptych series in grey-scale where one or two of the images seem to be like photos out of focus, he was inspired by the American photographer Francesca Woodman, who was known for her portraits of women as well as self-portraits. Some of his other projects are a series of “portraits” of all the houses he has lived in, industrial buildings in his Swedish home town, Västerås, and the ongoing All The Beach Houses on Ocean Front Walk (Los Angeles) – there are 53. He hopes to be able to contact all the owners asking them to tell something about themselves and their houses. Until he was 24 Per Henrik Eriksson spent many summers with his aunt who lived in Los Angeles and he is very inspired by American minimalist artists such as Barnett Newman and Ad Reinhardt, but also mentions Edward Hopper as a major influence.

Inge Mette Kirkeby
by Marianne Gross
While studying to become an architect, Inge Mette Kirkeby took watercolour and sculpting lessons with the renowned artist Valdemar Foersom Hegnsdal. He taught his students how to depict shapes and shadows, but he also said that one is never fully educated as an artist. If you stay open-minded and keep setting higher standards, there will always be more to learn. Since then she has often painted watercolour sketches on holidays but there has also been long periods where she was occupied otherwise. She met the Swedish artist and architect Anna Törnquist at a conference and they discovered they shared a passion for watercolour. Inge Mette Kirkeby took classes with Anna Törnquist, who showed her how to be more free and spontaneous in her painting. She found that she no longer needed the objects or sceneries in front of her but was able to create watercolours from her memory and imagination. She also learned much from Hasse Karlsson whose works she admires for being very deep as well as refined, but always true to the nature of watercolour. Sometimes she want to try other media, but Inge Mette Kirkeby always returns to watercolour remembering the words from her teacher about never being fully educated.

Rolf H Gulbrandsen
by Jacqueline Stare
10 years ago Rolf H Gulbrandsen’s wife suffered severe illness and he closed down his architect firm to be able to stay at home and care for her. Her health has improved since, but from this hardship he evolved to become a significant artist. He has painted since his early childhood and at 18 he was the youngest ever to be admitted to the Architect School in Oslo due to the highly qualified works he presented for the entrance examination. As a landscape architect Rolf H Gulbrandsen developed a passion for bridge-design and he has edited a book on the subject. He also wrote part of the text and supplied around 20 watercolour illustrations. He met Arne Isacsson when they were both jury members in the committee to build the Svinesundsbron between Norway and Sweden and the two became friends. Rolf H Gulbrandsen was given much advice by Arne Isacsson and to perfect his skills of painting he also sought teachers such as Morten Paulsen and Kersti Eliassen as well as the swedes Hasse Karlsson, Anders Wallin, and Lars Holm. There is a melancholic mood to his paintings but in time he has moved away from the illustrative manner to a bolder and less detailed style. One of his teachers once said to him: In order for a painting to be good, you must at some point forget the motive and instead start communicating with the painting.

Nanna de Wilde
by Håkan Bull
With a father who painted it was natural for Nanna de Wildes also to go to art school. Her watercolours are deceptively beautiful but also a bit scary and hard to define. They give associations to the surreal atmosphere of science fiction thrillers such as Alien. She is influenced by the British artist Sarah Lucas and like her, she has worked with “found objects” (ready-mades), everyday objects that she turns into works of art with further elaboration. She often approaches her drawing and paintings in this way as well. The surreal artist Meret Oppenheim (the artist behind the famous fur-clad teacup, saucer and spoon) is also mentioned as an important source of inspiration. Nanna de Wilde often depicts objects with a decorative value, e.g. vases, ashtrays and bowls, and they will often have some kind of association to the human body or parts of it. Many of her paintings are with red and violet colours and in combination with their waving organic patterns they can remind of the colour scale one can see at the butcher’s counter. Young contemporary artists are experiencing a renewed interest for surrealism and the art of Nanna Wilde is a part of this trend.

3Questions to Anders Ramsell
by Håkan Nilsson
You have made a 30-minute animation of the film Blade Runner containing 12,597 watercolours. How long did it take, why did you choose to make an animation with watercolours and why did you pick this sombre science fiction movie?
– It took about two years plus one year for preparations. Watercolour made it possible for me to work with several images at the same time and work with colourization. I picked Blade Runner because I could add a new perspective to this particular film.
Some sequences are in a few tones only while others are very colourful, some of the images are very detailed and some are quite abstract. How did you choose which techniques/colours to work with?
– The images of each scene are shown only seconds apart, but the actual drawings were sometimes months apart. I was not too precise about keeping the same style or colour as long as the atmosphere of each image felt right, but I did use some colours with symbolic meanings throughout the film.
Which are your favourite scenes – in the movie and in your own interpretation?
The “Tears in the Rain” monologue in the original, and in my version the scene where Deckard scans the photograph.

Summary by Marianne Gross