Cette semaine nous vous emmenons dans l’univers très graphique de l’artiste danois, Per Adolfsen. Des paysages naturels où une nature luxuriante et colorée s’épanouie pleinement dans des espaces où les êtres humains ou vivants se font absents. En grand observateur, Per Adolfsen contemple seul et va à la rencontre de cette nature, qu’il aime et respecte profondément. En résulte des paysages expressionnistes qui sont sans nous rappeler ceux d’Edvard Munch ou de l’univers de Léon Spilliaert.
On vous laisse vous perdre dans chacun de ses dessins et admirer cette nature qui se fait presque magique !
On vous laisse vous perdre dans chacun de ses dessins et admirer cette nature qui se fait presque magique !
Could you introduce yourself ?
I am Per Adolfsen. I am a danish painter living in Denmark. Since I have been a boy I have made paintings and drawings. It all started out after seeing Edward Munchs works in Oslo when I was about 13 years old. By seeing this I knew this was my call. Doing art. Giving something to people they could relate to, passing on to the next generation. I had no doubt. I knew that would be my call for the rest of my life. So I did my first oil on canvas when I was 13 years old. Paintings and drawings from places and people I met to in the neighborhood.
Well I just went out there and painted and drew. Since then I have been working with art for many years and have shown all over the world in galleries and at most of the biggest and well known art fairs. I have had many different artistic approaches during the years.
Could you talk about your artworks ?
Main focus has always been to examine my mediums and the world outside, combined with where I am as a human and as an artist. I was very keen on becoming a great artist and always worked very hard to get to that point. Somehow 2 years ago I felt a bit lost with myself in this, trying to do great art. So for a year I almost did nothing. As if the images I always had in my head, had gone.
After this year, I realized that I, somehow, had lost myself and forgotten from where I came. What made it start....The years as a boy where I searched motifs in near surroundings on my bike. I now felt it might be a good ideas to revisit these places after all these years trying to recapture myself. So I went to the places again.
I decided to keep myself on track to do 3 small drawings a day that I felt were good. It meant in practice that I worked from early morning till late night. I decided to do so for a month to regain connection.
After this month was over, I realized I could not live without and decided this is what I am going to do as a working practice in general. Maybe for a year or more.
DUSK.(Melancholy) Drawing. Color pencil and Chalk on paper 60x42cm, 2020 Bullerup, Denmark
What is your relationship/link with nature ?
Actually because by being in nature that much, learned so much about patterns and structures in nature, that I could connect to my own life. I watched things grow. I watched things die. I noticed structures and patterns in all the elements in nature were connected in somehow fluid and complete form. The sky, the water, the trees. as if all elements are build on a same structure and are all involved in each other. Somehow I saw my own life in all these movements in nature. A feeling that I am nature to.
ANGLER BY THE COAST, drawing Color Pencil. 42X30 cm, April 2020. Ved Gals Klint, Fyn
MY SON ANGLING BY THE CHANNEL. Drawing color pencil, chalk and graphite 42x30cm
What did nature changed on your artwork ?
I did not think of it as if I was doing art. It really did not matter to me at all. I isolated myself for a year, well long before Covid-19 arrived. Just to be part of this I had went into for myself. I called it observations. It was important for me that I did not think of it as art. I was very aware of that, because I wanted to keep its authencity. A man in nature observing. Taking notes and making drawing. Trying to find the structure how the world is built. During all this, I suddenly realized my work changed slowly. As I had found some way of connection between the elements in nature. And furthermore I realized that, without being aware of it, I made drawings that showed the structures and movements in nature as I saw it. As If, by working in this isolated, I somehow had found a way to show the system in my works.
I am a piece of nature too. You are. Sometimes we just forget....an old artist said to me one day...I realized it was all about that. I am nature. I get born. I grow up. I live on the planet. I die.
SUMMER EVENING . Drawing colorpencil, 42x30cm, 2020.
What do you want to communicate with your artwork ?
So to me this project has become a project where I show people these systems that I see. Somehow I would want people to realize they are part of this bigger system. A humble way of thinking, in a time period where we somehow lost the connection to what we are, so many people spend their lives to look inside themselves to find out who they are and what they want to be. I say : « You are you. A piece of nature. Look in the mirror. thats the image of you. You are a small part in a bigger system. » I noticed some interest from people in my work. Well quite a lot now. As if we need this. To be shown that there is this system and that there is some comfort in the fact that we are just part of it. So cherish it. Listen and feel. Then we know who we are. Make a stop. You are you. Nothing more. Nothing less.
So I continue draw to give this. I also realize now, that art is about giving. People just forget that sometimes. Occupied with getting most of life for ourselves. Its a humble approach to life.
BATHING CABIN AND A TRASH CAN ON A BEACH. Drawing color pencil, graphite and chalk
SUMMER EVENING BY THE COAST Drawing colorpencil , chalk and graphite.
You often use a same colour palette. What is your relationship to colour and what does it bring to your landscapes?
My choise of color and lines are deeply connected to all these things. I dont see them as decorative elements, but how I see things are built. I find it important to show it in a very direct way. Simple one might say. I call it direct without a lot of invented emotional talking around the bush. Each motif I do I have met in real life out there. The result of the work is simply a result of the image I get in my head when I see it in nature. Its just there...in my head. I see the picture in my head. So I do it and pass the image on to people who wants to see it. It is all about connecting.
Despite the situation do you have any projects?
Right now I am showing At Alexander Ochs Private in Berlin until the 28th of august
A GROUP OF TREES IN THE HORIZON. Part ll. Drawing Colorpencil, Chalk and Graphite 42x30cm, 2020
EVENING SKY. BEHIND MY HOUSE, colorpencil , graphite and chalk, 42x30cm, 2020
THE BEACH, New small drawing, Color Pencil and graphite, 14,8x21cm, 2020
THE BEACH (Vl) Drawing. Colorpencil and pencil on paper 42x30cm. An evening in April 2020
Toutes les oeuvres de Per Adolfsen sont à retrouver sur sa page Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/peradolfsen_artist/