The Scrmn Letters August 2022
(this is my August newsletter that I sent to mailinglist subscribers early August. If you would like one too early September please sign up here. Thank you!)
Hi everyone
Hope that you had a good summer so far. So there are two fun things to talk about. Maybe even three but let’s stick to the two serious ones.
First of all my new show Apricots and Freshwater Pearls opens at Hans Alf Gallery on Friday the 12th of August here in Copenhagen. You are very much welcome for a drink on the day at the Opening. We open at 17.00 and doors close at 20.00. The show will run until September 10 but it’s most fun if you can come and say hello at the opening.
The second thing is my new silkscreen print “Showtime” which is being released today and is available in my webshop. It’s one of my bigger prints based on a crayon drawing. I’m very happy with it. Special thanks to master printer Rune from Icescreen Printing. It’s always a pleasure to work with him - his patience with me, finding the right red, which is almost orange is second to none.
Back to the show. The title “Apricots and Freshwater Pearls” came from, well it’s pretty obvious… Apricots. I bought some very pretty Apricots one day and came home with them. They looked like small butts and had this intense orangeness with a red hue and yeah, they got me excited about painting them and painting apricot trees. On my way out to the studio I took some of the apricots and more or less by accident put them next to some of Carolina’s pearl jewellery. This was another painterly moment because the two objects together worked just great. When I look at these things I think about the history of the pearls - pearl divers, oysters, beauty, warmth, heat, islands and then you get it mixed up with french apricot farmers, the fickleness of the climate, ripe fruits, life, the design of everything, god maybe, the diverse european countryside - how everything nice seems to happen outside the city. For me, in this situation (the situation with the apricots and pearls) you have two options. Either you pack your bags and head to the french countryside and get wine and local food or you start painting. Painting is my main attraction so I went to the studio and started painting apricot trees.
One other thing about the show that might be important. When I did the last shows, Modern Love in 2018 and Angel in 2020 I painted a lot of women with their back turned against the viewer. But as with most good things you can’t keep doing them. So I stopped painting those.The truth is that, while I did those shows, and other shows, I tried to paint Carolina, facing me, and I was never really happy with the paintings (so I never showed them) until this year when I got to a place where I was suddenly happy with the outcome. The first one was “The Heatwave”. The painting is kind of self-explanatory. I think I worked on that painting for 7 years (in my head). As a painter you always wait for those moments - when something you tried to make work, suddenly works. When this happen you can tell yourself that all those other things you’ve tried and failed to do will probably also suddenly work one day. You can then continue the work. I think that’s why many painters paint until they are physically unable to do it anymore. It’s a real kick - I am my own little circus horse!! Apricots and Freshwater Pearls is a pretty personal show of mine - images from my own life, more or less real.
Asger and Hans from Hans Alf Gallery will handle all inquires for paintings and preview, pdf’s and the like. You can reach Asger on this email: asger@hansalf.com and he is available to send all information about the new paintings. And of course you can see all the new paintings here.
Hope to see you on the 12th of August. Write me if you have any questions.
all the best
Anders
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Installation shots from Hans Alf Gallery January 2022
Im happy to start the year showing five new paintings at Hans Alf Gallery’s annual group show The Great Big Winter Show.
all photos by Julie Nymann/HAG
New Paintings On Show In January, New Limited Edition Print
Hi everyone and merry December!
Today I have added a new limited edition print to my webshop. It’s called Revolution Ballet - named after the most famous revolution namely the French one. To get in the right spirit for x-mas I have been rather obsessed with the French revolution the last month or two. I think maybe unconsciously I’ve been drawn to places in history that was chaotic or especially challenging.
In the summer I took a 4 week break from painting. My first in years I think. I spent the time making ceramics and biking around the countryside for hours. When I came back in the studio in September I went at it with my oil sticks. I didn’t touch a paintbrush for the past few months, only the big fat oil sticks and here we are with a group of new paintings. I like to see them as enlarged fragments of my earlier works. In January a group of these new paintings will be on display at Hans Alf Gallery in the project room for the winter group show.
The next months the paintings for my solo show at Hans Alf Gallery that opens in August 2022 will start to take shape in the studio together with other projects I tend to start when I should be focused on something specific.
Happy holidays to all of you.
New Works on Paper
New paper works from September 2021, all made with oilsticks and on paper.
Ceramics In California And A Big New Limited Edition Print
Hi everyone, I hope you are enjoying these last days of summer.
Speaking of summer, I just used all of the bubblewrap that I collected in my studio over the past year (all art supplies are covered in it) wrapping up a lot of new ceramics that are right now somewhere between Copenhagen and California. Im super happy to be part of a group show at Legion Projects in Healdsburg. I spent most of my summer making ceramics in Oddsherred and getting to know our kiln and various glazes and yes, some of them are capable of minor disasters. Sydney from Legion Projects picked 9 pieces for the show and the rest are ready for other upcoming collaborations.
When I came back to the city and the studio I saw my avocado green steel linocut press and it looked too inviting so I made a new big blue linocut called “Woman in Sky Blue Jacket”. It’s all blue and made with etching oils and hand coloured details in gouache. Limited edition of 10 and available here.
To all my american friends: the show at Legion Projects opens mid September so do take a drive up through the wine fields to Sonoma County and Healdsburg.
Anders Scrmn
In fine Company at The Darling
Im happy to be part of the rotating art collection at The Darling Design Guesthouse here in Copenhagen. The design guesthouse is curated and designed by Uffe Buchard and features some of the most famous danish furniture designers and a long list contemporary artists like Amalie Jakobsen, Asger Dybvad Larsen, Bo Rune Madsen, Tal R, Jørgen Haugen Sørensen, Cathrine Raben Davidsen, Josefine Winding, Christian Lemmerz, Mie Olise Kjærgaard and more. You can see more about The Darling here.
Featured in Brask Studio Visits VI
Jens-Peter Brask is a Danish art collector, curator and book publisher based here in Copenhagen. I first met Jens-Peter in 2013-14 around the time I was preparing for my show “The World Was Weird”. Jens-Peter is a curious art lover who visits artists all around the world and I have always been happy to welcome him in my studio. Earlier this year in April we had fun working together on a huge mural on Valby Hallen and now I am happy to be featured in his latest book “Brask Studio Visits VI".
The book features a large group of artists:
A Kassen, Ammon Rost, Amy Bessone, Anders Scrmn Meisner, Anna Stahn, AVPD, Bennett Williams, Brian Rochefort, Chloe Wise, Christian Schmidt-Rasmussen, Craig Costello, Daniel Gibson, Danny Fox, Diana "Didi" Rojas, Ebbe Stub Wittrup, Eva Koch, Evren Tekinoktay, Hilary Pecis, Iván Navarro, James Ulmer, Jeremy Shockley, Jon Pylypchuk, Kinga Bartis, Maiken Bent, Maria Rubinke, Martin Bigum, Martin Paaskesen, Mathias Malling Mortensen, Peter Birk, Russell Nachman, Sharif Farrag, Shepard Fairey (OBEY), Taylor McKimens, Torben Ribe, Ursula Reuter Christiansen og Victor Ash.
Two new linocuts prints. "Wendy and Designer Rugs".
The scandinavian summer light is getting sucked out of the sky faster than my daughter drank her chocolate milkshake today. It always surprises me how fast it changes here. It’s only 20.00 as I write this but already dark enough for me to look out the window to look for Carolina who is still out in the garden unwilling to put the spade down. Always planting something. Seeds are like sending yourself letters that will arrive in spring.
A few weeks ago I revisited my big green steel press after the gallery had picked up the paintings for Enter Art Fair. I wanted to do two smaller prints this time (20x30 cm). The first one I did was “The Wendy Flight” which is a Peter Pan reference. The other one is a “Designer Rug” which is lifted from my recent interest in fabric patterns. I think I will be making lots of patterns this winter.
The prints are available over in my webshop here.
enjoy september
scrmn
New works for Enter Art Fair, Copenhagen
It’s the end of summer and I am happy to show a lot of new paintings at this year Enter Art Fair in Copenhagen with Hans Alf Gallery.
Most of this year the family have resided outside the city and early this summer we redid the countryside studio and painted it a crispy light blue with leftover paints from the big mural in Valby. All the new paintings were painted up here in June and July in the blue studio.
You can find all the visitor info about Enter Art Fair here. It opens thursday the 27th and runs through Sunday the 30th of August here in Copenhagen.
Enjoy the last days of summer.
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)
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.
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.
Revisiting the Colombian Jungle Painting
During this national shutdown we have moved out of the city closer to the forest and Kattegat. It’s about three weeks ago and we will be here for much longer. I don’t miss city life at all. Not that city life is bad but being out here on the country side for this long put things in perspective and there is a different tranquility up here than in the city. I have never been a nature hiking sort of guy but I do like to look at nature. Especially Colombian nature. My wife’s family are from Colombia so we try to go as often as possible. Above is a picture of Carolina’s childhood finca and playground. You can see the influence in her recent work too here. Places like that are meant to enter ones work. One of my favourite things to look at is when the day turns to evening altering the color of plants making them almost black in stark contrast to what is left of daylight. In 2015 I made these gouache works on paper and I felt like looking at them the other day. Here they are.
Et åndehul i en svær tid - Anders Scrmn Meisner - Angel
Thanks to http://kunstavisen.dk/ and Connie Boe Boss for reviewing my show “Angel”. Article in Danish.
Angel installation shots and the shadow of Corona
So here I am typing on my laptop on the countryside away from the city. Schools are closed and I have started to make a large totem pole with my 6 year old kid to pass time. It’s isolation time. We throw rocks in the sea everyday and I make warm lunch - also every day. It doesnt feel much different than during summer holiday but it really is.
When I finished the last painting for my show “Angel”, which is currently hanging at Hans Alf Gallery in Copenhagen, I was trying to explain to Carolina what I thought the paintings were about. This was back in early february before all this, that is now. I told her the show was about “Hope”, or where to find such a thing. Like, where does one go for such a thing as hope? So that’s where the Angels come in. Marching in silence. Hope has for generations been tied to religion but I think there is more to it. I like to think of hope in a more animal strength kind of way. Like when you hear thunder and a loud crackle from a lightning. I like that. It’s more like that I imagine the feeling of hope can sit with us as people. Hope enters suddenly and pushes back despair - like summer rain.
Corona first really worried me when my participation in a March show (Future Memories) in Hong Kong got pushed to Autumn. That sounds selfish and I guess it was. Angel did open the 6th of March in Copenhagen, and here we are shortly after in a national lockdown. I like to think of the paintings hanging there in the middle of this national shutdown. I think…in some way, without being too theatrical about it, one of the more rewarding things about making art is that when paintings leave the studio they go and have a life somewhere else. A painting is so controlled in the hands of the painter but when they leave - well ... then they are really out on their own. They will hang on a wall, witness life and decay, parties, death, war and love. And of course - Corona crisis.
I know that many have already seen the show at Hans Alf Gallery, but of course I also know that many will not be able to. So here are some installation shots. I know that in some time the world will return to it’s normal weirdness. Thanks to Hans Alf Gallery for keeping open by appointment. My webshop runs as usual and I keep on painting out here on the countryside.
Thanks for reading and thanks for looking.
Anders Scrmn
COPENHAGEN SHOW OPENING MARCH 6th
Show in Hong Kong
I am very proud to be included in this show at City University of Hong Kong. I will contribute with several works made in the period 2013-2020.
I am also happy to have lend the title to show. “Future Memories” was part of the 2014 exhibition “The World Was Weird” at Hans Alf Gallery and is one of my larger intricate collage pieces from that period titled “Future Memories”. The show is curated by Harald Kraemer who knows my work so well so a special thanks to both Janine and Harald for their continuing interest in my work. It’s so nice to see the works being included in this show so far away from home. The show opens on March 6th and during Art Basel Hong Kong - the 16th of March there will be a book release about the show. The poster also features a work of mine from 2015 titled “Running Through The Amazon”.
About the show:
The exhibition and publication “FUTURE MEMORIES. Artistic Utopias and Dystopias on Nature” deal with the changed image of landscape and nature in contemporary art. Triggered by questions of the climate crisis and a rethinking of the challenge of a changing nature, Harald Kraemer has selected 10 inspiring positions from international artists. The exhibition is laid out as a labyrinth with two films by George Steinmann (CH) and Zheng Bo (HK) at its centre. This centre can be reached by choosing one of two ways. Depending on which path one chooses, one encounters art works by Gernot Bubenik (DE), Matthew Northridge (US), Elke Reinhuber (DE), Angela Su (HK) or Bernard Ammerer (AT), Anders Scrmn Meisner (DK), Don Ritter (CA), as well as Liao Zenping (TW).
Location:
3F, Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre 18, Tat Hong Avenue, Kowloon Tong
To stay up to date on shows, print releases etc you are very welcome to join my mailinglist here.
New Silkscreen Print - City Sleeper
In between preparing for my upcoming March show, making 99 ceramic rings and trying to stay awake during the dark scandinavian november afternoons I did have time to visit my friends Rune and Rune’s silkscreen studio. After working out there during the summer I got excited about doing more. It’s a lot of fun. This time I opted to do the image in gouache so I could work in my current element which is with brushes. The last one I did with pencils. Maybe its for nerds but the outlines gets different using a brush. Second step was driving everyone crazy finding the exact red, the exact pink, the specific indigo blue that has become my preferred blue and then of course something that gets close to the chrome oxide green that has been the color of many of my leaves since Under Distant Palmtrees. I added lots of process shots further down this blogpost.
The print is now available though my webshop here. It ships for free to the worldwide world yet without the frame as to avoid shipping glass and wood around. I hope you like it.
