Omslagsbild:
Lars Holm – Kollektion, 3-D akvarell, 41x52cm, 2012. Foto: Lars Holm

 

 


Lars Holm
by Håkan Bull
To celebrate Lars Holm’s 65th birthday, Ronneby Culture Centre has put up a grand retrospective show of his watercolour works in the summer of 2018. Lars Holm is creative in many areas and grew up in a family where the tradition was, that if you wanted something, you made it yourself. He was trained in woodworking, he has refurbished furniture, he took up painting and eventually he came to work at Uppsala State Theatre as scenographer. In his spare time he builds and rebuilds his own home. In 1984 he attended a watercolour class under the supervision of Arne Isacsson and this was the beginning of his shift towards a career as an artist. In 1988 he was invited to lead a course at the Gerlesborg School where he to date has held 78 watercolour courses. Lately he has focused on 5 themes: Personal landscapes (small size sketchy watercolour impressions), Maps (elaborating in the studio making use of a print matrix), Shards (depicting small pieces of porcelain and pottery), Faces (not being actual portraits) and Collection (3D shirt sculptures).

Ylva Molitor-Gärdsell
by Jacqueline Stare
Ylva Molitor-Gärdsell has lived in Österlen, Skåne for a couple of years and draws inspiration from nature here as well as in Australia where she spends the winter. She has developed two colour palettes: the intense warm Australian one and the more subdued Swedish one. She has always drawn and painted and is self-taught apart from courses with Arne Isacsson, Anders Wallin, and Lars Holm. She worked in marketing and communication in Australia and Belgium for many years. One of her relatives was the artist and writer Hans Viksten. He and his wife meant a great deal to her, and he encouraged her to keep on painting. Behind the rapidly painted watercolours of birds and frogs lie many hours of study. She spends much time watching the elegant long-legged storks and cranes in Österlen. In her images of the birds – and now also of frogs – there is much humour and warmth and personality. They are never intended to be realistic. She also paints semi-abstract landscapes in mixed media with or without silhouettes of people.

Hardy Brix – Iceprint/Nature print
by Marianne Gross
For many years Hans Brix has been travelling to cold places in the Arctic region such as Svalbard, Lofoten, and Greenland for painting inspiration. In October 2015 he was on a sailing expedition to Svalbard where he almost by accident discovered a new method which he has named Iceprint. He dabbed some paint on a block of ice and placed it on a sheet of watercolour paper. Later he saw that the ice had melted and left an interesting imprint. The previous summer on a trip in Denmark, Hardy Brix had been experimenting with watercolour prints using grasses, plants, seaweeds, and other natural elements to make traces in his paintings. He was fascinated by the physicality of gathering the elements for his artwork in the same way as he prefers to mix his own paints. Iceprints and Nature prints are two paths down the same track: using natural local natural elements (ice or plant material) to create patterns in a random way. Now he has also taken the processes to his studio recreating them in a more controlled manner, still capturing the original intensity.

Kari Kolltveit
by Live Sætre
For the time being Kari Kolltveit is studying calligraphy and drawing. She has a degree in graphic design and has since long been interested in calligraphy which is quite clear in her watercolour works. She also has a keen interest in crows and recognizes the personality of each one that comes to her bird-feeding spot. So her paintings are not merely “a crow”, but a specific individual. Another inspiration is fencing, a sport she took up because it challenges the mind as well as the body and has the rythmic movements in common with watercolour painting. She is well aware of the many pigment characteristics in watercolour paint and makes use of them, even though she does not have 100% control since she paints using much water. Apart from her life paintings she does not depict people in her works, but the lack of people can still tell stories of human activity. An empty hotel room, empty chairs in a circle, and a dog on a leash: what you see tells something about what you don’t see. She also makes political statements through her artwork.