Hello Philemon and Blue Kimono - two new limited edition linocut prints

Back in April I took a leap and bought a huge avocado green printing press. It’s an old school german steel “druckpresse” that can do etchings and linocuts and all other intaglio prints. Since then I have been working on two new prints and here they are.

They are now available from my webshop here.

They are printed with Charbonnel Etching ink and at one of them I couldn’t control myself and added some red gouache detail. It’s been a lot of fun to get into the art of print making again and now I know where to buy “grease” for mechanical machinery.

The two prints are named “Hello Philemon” (edition of 24) and “Blue Kimono” (edition of 8)

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Big Mural in Valby, Copenhagen

This monday and tuesday I completed my largest painting to date. The new mural is on Valby Hallen a sports and concert hall here in Copenhagen. Big thanks to Jens-Peter Brask for curating the big project and to Henrik Soten for all his help with blowing this painting up to giant size. Also thanks to the Copenhagen Municipality for their support and investment in public art.

I have to add that this was way more fun that I had imagined. It was good for this indoor studio painter to get out in the elements for a bit.

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Paris Blue

People familiar with my paintings will know I have had an affinity for two certain paint pigments. Cinnober Red aka vermillion Red and Paris Blue. They are both old painters favourites. Paris Blue was first synthesized as a paint in 1706 and Vermillion Red was used in ancient rome. Vermillion is the most toxic one and comes from a mercury sulfide mineral. Paris Blue is said to have initially been made from blood, potash and Iron sulfide. Layering these paris blues with Cobalt and ultra marine blues have been something I tend to return to year after year and over easter I did again which resulted in a few new gouache paintings. This week I am working on a new limited edition print - which will for sure be Paris Blue..It will be released when it’s dry very soon some time in May. If you join my mailinglist I let you know when it is :) thank you.

New pen drawings

Last time I was visiting my mom-in law in Bogota she had put out some old stationary for the kids to draw on. As those of you who knows me I am a collector of certain paper especially paper that carry some history or has an altered tone due to age and exposure to sunlight. The paper has been laying in my studio waiting for me to find it after I had lost it among all my other papers which I did recently.


The Unused Love Letters

A few years ago I bought a big german Ceramic Ovn (aka Kiln) as I got the idea that it was time to expand into Ceramics. They delivered it outside my city studio on a cold winter day even though I had ordered to be delivered to my country side one in the Northern part of Zealand. I had to buy two construction workers pizza in order to convince them to drag the 200 kilo Kiln to my car and lift it inside where it barely fitted. I then proceeded to the countryside driving 60 km an hour on the highway as I was afraid my grandmothers old Ford would buckle under the weight. It didn’t but it did buckle a year later.

Then a month ago me and Carolina Echeverri got the idea to make ceramic rings in the Kiln. Ambitiously we decided to do 99 which in retrospect was a crazy idea but crazy is fun too. Hans Alf Gallery had invited me to make some ceramics for a group show that they would host and had initially asked me to do some Vases. However it’s only natural to stray from an assignment.

The Unused Love Letters was a title from a notebook of mine from 2009. So it’s actually 10 years old which has confirmed my belief in never ever to throw anything away. Titles are just words waiting for the right work to come by.

Each ring carry it’s own title. It’s own reference and direction.

The Unused Love Letters is actually Carolina and mine’s first art collaboration. That being said Carolina has always been the first one to see a new work of mine, always a guidance, critique and inspiration for me so it was very natural to cooperate on this mad project.

We hope you will join us for the opening Friday the 25th of October at Hans Alf Gallery!

oh and one more thing. Next month I am releasing a brand new silkscreen print + I will have some sort of open studio some time late november and if you are curious you can sign up to my mailinglist here.

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Sitting in a night train from Hamburg thinking of medieval ceilings

The other night I was sitting in a night train to Copenhagen from Hamburg. It’s been a while since I have taken the train at night but in an attempt to save both time and the world I ended up in one. I can’t sleep while in any transit be it car, plane, train or boat since I am too tall to sit comfortable. Do transport vehicle designers hate tall people? I hope the flying sun-panel driven pods that we fly in the future are larger so I dont have to lay curled up in a white apple looking flying plastic pod?

So I have to sit and think for 6 hours in the sharp LED light and look out at the dark recently harvested fields. That can be productive or non productive. A bit of both. First off I had to think of David Berman who passed away recently. He was one of my favourite poets and musicians. I was walking along in St. Pauli and saw all the punks with their beer cans, mutty dogs and 80’s haircuts. Nose rings and Dr. Martens. So out of fashion and yet so fashionable. David Berman sings about them in the song “Punks in the beerlight” that also treats highly relevant topics like fentanyl and Adam and Eve. So whenever I see a one of those german punks I have to think of David Berman and these lyrics:

Where's the paper bag that holds the liquor?
Just in case I feel the need to puke.
If we'd known what it'd take to get here,
Would we have chosen to?
Would we have chosen to?

So you wanna build an altar on a summer night?
You wanna smoke the gel off a fentanyl patch.
Ain'tcha heard the news? Adam and Eve were Jews.
And I always loved you to the max.

Then my thoughts shifted to churches and church ceilings. I guess - maybe the trail of thought was kind of from the perspective of laying in a coffin and looking up. Which probably explains why churches that only carry closed coffins often have very boring ceilings. The churches that carry a more open coffin style have very beautiful ceilings. Me and the family stayed in a presbytery (the home of a priest (the priest didnt live there anymore)) in June in France. The ceiling was a dark indigo blue and someone had painted yellow golden stars on there. It was very nice to sleep under and prompted me to plan to paint our own ceilings in our bedroom but I’ve been too busy and the fact I need a scaffold to lay in order to paint it has put the project on hold but it will happen.

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This picture kind of carry the ceiling I have in mind. I didn’t take the picture but its from “The Institure for Western Civilsation” and I would like to credit them for it. It’s from the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua in Italy and painted by Giotto. Thats the same Chapel that has “The Kiss of Judas” in it which is just an amazing painting really. The drama. A kiss followed by execution. And time has been kind to the blue sky with its grey scratches.

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Anyway the church ceilings are now making their way into my paintings or at least they are in my head while I paint. Things enter the mind and have to be painted out again. I guess if one didn’t paint they would just stay in there and take up space. Clear clear sky.

If one is in the mood one can look at Giottos “Kiss of Judas” and listen to Margaritas at the mall by David Bermans “Purple Mountains”. Or just read the lyrics and look at the painting. It’s an original contemporary experience.

Margaritas at The Mall

Drawn up all my findings and I warn you they are candid
My every day begins with reminders I've been stranded
On this planet where I've landed, 'neath this gray-as-granite sky
A place I wake up blushin' like I'm ashamed to be alive

How long can a world go on under such a subtle God?
How long can a world go on with no new word from God?
See the plod of the flawed individual looking for a nod from God
Trotting the sod of the visible with no new word from God

We're just drinkin' margaritas at the mall
That's what this stuff adds up to after all
Magenta, orange, acid green
Peacock blue and mercury
Drinkin' margaritas at the mall

Standin' in the shadows of the signposts on the road
Fifty gates of understanding, forty-nine are closed
Yes, I guess this time I really hit that number on the nose
What I'd give for an hour with the power on the throne

How long can a world go on under such a subtle God?
How long can a world go on with no word from God?
See the plod of the flawed individual looking for a nod from God
Trotting the sod of the visible with no new word from God

We're just drinkin' margaritas at the mall
This happy hour's got us by the balls
Magenta, orange, acid green
Peacock blue and mercury
Drinkin' margaritas at the mall
We're drinking margaritas at the mall
Drinkin' margaritas at the mall

By David Berman (1967-2019)






New Silk Screen Print on its way

I’ve been wanting do a limited edition print for quite some time and I might have told some people that I would have one ready in March but that turned out to be politician speech. Now it’s almost July and I guess I made a lot of paintings in the meantime. There might also have been an issue with me spending a lot of time playing Synthesizer. It’s John Carpenters fault.

Anyway, my friends Rune and Rune from Ice Screen Printing called me up one day and invited me out to their screen printing studio and now the print is almost done. I got some process pictures as proof this time. The photos are taken a few layers of ink in, so the print still needs a few more layers. If you want a heads up for when the print walks out into the real world I would be happy if you signed up to my mailinglist here.

enjoy the summer

New Paintings January 2019

After a rather long vacation in the mountains of Colombia I have been back in the studio again and I’ve made three new paintings that will be showed by Hans Alf Gallery at this years Art Herning from the 1st-3rd of Feb.

These coming weeks I will be working on some new limited edition silk screen prints that I hope to have ready in the beginning of march. You can sign up to my mailinglist here and I will let you know when the new limited edition prints will be ready :)

Sisters in Spanish Bathroom, 90x105 cm Oil on Canvas

Sisters in Spanish Bathroom, 90x105 cm Oil on Canvas

Bluebirds, Cigarettes and Wine, 90x105 cm Oil on canas

Bluebirds, Cigarettes and Wine, 90x105 cm Oil on canas

The Dog and Pony Show, 90x105 cm, Oil on canvas

The Dog and Pony Show, 90x105 cm, Oil on canvas

Modern Love opens next week...

Next week my new show Modern Love opens in Copenhagen. I've been working for a long time on all these new paintigs and I can't wait to show them. Of course I hope that you can come by for the opening on Friday the 26th from 17.00-20.00 at Hans Alf Gallery.

If you can't come but you want to see all the paintings you can always email me for a preview.

This summer I spent some time in Basel where I did a show at Lotsremark Projekte which is the project space of collectors and art historians Harald Kraemer and Janine Stoll. Harald Kraemer wrote the essay for my show "The World Was Weird" at Hans Alf Gallery in 2014 and through our conversations this year in Basel it became obvious to me that Harald should write the essay for Modern Love. He did, It's titled Aphrodite - Sappho - Myth and you can read it on my blog here. 

And before you read on I apologise for the length of the text below. You don't have to read it all, in reality it's better to just come and have fun looking at the paintings. However there are no laws against long newsletters so I will continue.

Speaking about paintings is often one of the hardest thing for a painter to do. I love to talk about paintings but I find these new ones harder to talk about than my last shows. I will try though. The overall subject is Love and Women. I started this show autumn 2017 by doing loads of pencil drawings. At that time I didn't know that I was making a foundation for "Modern Love". I made drawings of women sleeping inside a church and I titled it "Safe From Ghouls". Ghouls are like Zombies btw. I did another one called "Hidden From The World", also women sleeping in a sort of sanctimoney. I took the women out of the drawing "Megadome Of Christ" and left God's house abandoned. (The biggest drawing). I got interested and obsessed with the subject and that lead to the show. It's not as if I actively chose the subject. A painterly subject just sort of happens. At least for me. I drew two women facing a landscape, leaning their heads towards eachother. There was a duality there. They could be sisters, lovers or friends. They look like they were sharing an emotion. That's when it all started and I realised that I was painting something I didn't understand. Nevertheless I seemed to be able to paint it - the un-understandable. That's when I started to stretch the big canvasses, the small canvasses. The fun of painting something you can not possibly be part of. It did feel like a voyeristic experience at times. The canvasses only posing questions back at me. Constant questions and mysteries. I added Unopened Loveletters, empty beds, dogs for company, moments of gazing out of windows, therapy rooms, and lots of cherries.

Around christmas time 2017 I read the Greek poet Sappho's "ode to Aphrodite". Sappho seems to be asking Aphrodite for help to make another woman love her. The power of this very old piece of text is so vivid, strong and complex. It occured to me how little is understood of love between humans.

Sappho, in the midst of her frustration calls upon her Godess to make sense of her situation, to make love fruition, to make another human understand her love. If Sappho was a friend of mine, I guess the only help I could offer her was that some things are easilier painted than understood.

I hope to see you at the opening.
thanks
Anders