3 reflections on Impressionism

Oslo, December 2024

„Der Maler soll nicht bloß malen, was er vor sich sieht, sondern auch, was er in sich sieht. Sieht er aber nichts in sich, so unterlasse er auch zu malen, was er vor sich sieht. sonst werden seine Bilder den spanischen Wänden gleichen, hinter denen man nur Kranke oder gar Tote erwartet.“ Caspar David Friedrich

1. In the winter of 1895, Claude Monet, the father of Impressionism, travelled to Norway with the aim of painting snowy landscapes. He quickly had to abandon his plan to venture far inland and into the vastness of the mountains due to insufficient infrastructure and unfavorable weather conditions. Instead, he stayed in the Christiania (Oslo) and Sandvika area, where he devoted himself to the surrounding landscape. Impressionism is the discipline of light; snow is never simply white, but appears in many shades and colors, illuminated by the soft pastel light of the sun, which only appears briefly in the Northern winter months. This is how he portrayed Mount Kolsås, under which I now go about my daily business. On winter days like these, when the mountain stands out in the hazy morning light, faintly pink against the icy blue sky, I think of the painter and what he may have felt in his encounter with it, the snow and the light. 

2.  I am saddened and at times disgusted by the degree to which society has rationalized life and mechanized thinking. We are not only what we produce by the roles we are given, or have chosen to play. We are not just capital. Contributing to society also means preserving and showing humanity. Our raison d’être should first and foremost be: to be there. Then: to be there for each other. Schools, places of learning and thinking. But to what use is thinking if thinking only means: calculating, logic, knowledge. I am afraid, with this understanding we will only breed even greater alienation. Art and philosophy want to offer us an alternative: by searching, seeing and experiencing a world that is revealed in our subjective reality and otherwise serves no other purpose. Where does ‘meaning’ or ‘truth’ come from if I can’t find it in the reality of my own life, if I can’t connect it to myself, if it doesn’t show itself to me? How am I supposed to face the utmost important, the cardinal questions of my life, if not by taking a personal approach through reflecting and philosophizing? This is why philosophy and art should play a much more central role in education. 

3. For me, Monet’s version of Mount Kolsås stands for a profound way of thinking and of recognizing beauty in the ordinary. In the truest sense of Impressionism, it is a symbol of light. The painting, as the mountain itself, show that we can look up from everyday life and from boredom, insignificance and indifference. The painter’s gaze has changed my view of the mountain forever. I never see it as just a landmark, I see a work of art at the moment of its unveiling.

On the intrinsic value of the artistic process

Oslo, March 2024

“Dear me! How long is art, and short is our life!” With these words, Goethe’s Faust laments the imbalance between human ambition and its temporal limitations, thus pointing to the famous Hippocratic aphorism. Any artist, in fact anyone with a bucket list, should be familiar with the problem, the fear of not having accomplished their goals when the hourglass runs out. And time is running faster than ever before. German sociologist Hartmut Rosa even speaks of an acceleration of the speed of life in our modern times. Likewise, our attention span is gradually decreasing, as research suggests. Watch any movie from the 60s or try reading through an entire newspaper article and you’ll have proof. What does this mean for the artistic process? Interestingly, art is changing, too. It is adapting to the shortness of time and has itself become faster. In the past, it was not unusual for a work of art to take months or even years to complete. For the postmodern artist, it’s a fight for survival, socially and economically. I am in fact both excited and concerned about how AI will change our understanding of art and how artists will use it to evolve throughout the 21st century. To be clear, what worries me most about AI is not that it might produce poor quality, but that it might undermine the artistic process and with it the possibility of subjective encounters with ourselves and the world.

From an art viewer’s perspective, I expect my works to have a certain gravitas so that they resonate accordingly and create meaningful encounters with others. Without the effort and time commitment, it simply wouldn’t work. That’s why I refuse to equate slowness with inefficiency. I have therefore developed a particular interest in the various cognitive processes that take place as a drawing takes shape. For me, these are the primary values, or intrinsic values, because I assume that they precede the physical artwork. These values ​​are mostly  phenomenological in nature, but they can also be about flow, growth and persistence, all of which I assume are the fundamental building blocks of creativity and innovation. The artistic process is about thinking and learning. But most of all it is about opening up, listening and tuning into the essence of art. No one has described this more beautifully than Martin Heidegger. Immersing yourself in the work ultimately means creating a space for reflection and introspection, a storehouse of ideas, a place free of distractions, trivialities and banalities. I consider this space to be more valuable and more real than the physical work of art itself. It is also intrinsic to the artwork, as its ultimate essence or aura, as Walter Benjamin put it. This is why I am sometimes tempted to delay or completely prevent the moment of completion in order to remain in the state of listening, harmonizing and resonating. At the same time, I also think that perfection is an overrated goal, in art as in life. The fact that neither Doctor Faust nor anyone else leaves the stage satiated speaks for itself. Perhaps a slight change of focus would not be inappropriate.

I believe that the artistic process has great potential, not just for artists, but for everyone. We live in a time when introspection often takes the form of narcissistic self-expression or destructive self-fragmentation and self-alienation, none of which leads to growth. More and more young people stop “functioning” and are becoming social cases, as recent figures show. And that is understandable. The fear of personal failure is overwhelming. The constant flood of information wears down the mind and creates paranoia. Paradoxically, it is not the noise that causes the most anxiety, but the silence.

One of the biggest challenges of our time is to reclaim time, to fill the vacuum and to become aware of ourselves. I like to think that artistic processes can be part of the solution, simply because art is at the core of creativity and self-awareness. Art can also teach us to observe, listen, learn and improve. It can help us become more resilient. I hope that curricula in the future will be less geared towards market forces and instead create more sustainable learning conditions. I would like to see more practical and aesthetic learning strategies in schools to encourage creativity and innovation. In this sense, I also hope that our future understanding of art does not completely abandon the process in favor of the product. To be honest, I’m even a little optimistic.

On drawing

Oslo, July 2023

My works are inspired by nature, science, philosophy and the still life genre. They also reflect my own phenomenological reflections, the dialog between artist, object and world that manifests itself in the work. When I draw objects, I try to reveal their enigmatic, mysterious nature as well as the mathematical complexity of which they are composed.

Creating art means reaching out for the impossible, the nameless, the unfathomable. I want my pictures to have a touch of this mystery, knowing full well that most of it remains hidden in the realm of the subjective. Although I work figuratively, one could also say realistically, it is never my aim to depict reality. Rather, I want to reveal a kind of hiddenness of the object, its innermost and unheard substance. The key factor in this process of observing, listening and refining is time.

My work is largely dependent on this process. This may explain my preference for lengthy, traditional techniques. As I apply layer upon layer of thin lines, the resulting pattern develops into its own entity. The motif can appear heavier, darker and more intense. This very time-consuming process is a goal in itself, the drawing becomes a time capsule, a small bastion against entropy.