Kjell NUPEN

A landscape of landscapes

[…]
The painter, who is conscious that there is little interest in separating the figurative from the abstract, decides for a graphic and chromatic form which seems the most likely to him, not to imitate a pattern, but to offer its essence. There is no concession to expressionism, no exaggerated effects, no needless prettiness. Nothing is named, situated, related.  And more important, nothing is explained.

The dominant color is a deep, nocturnal blue, the official mark or the synonym of the artist. In Norway today, one says “Nupen blue” the way one would say “Klein blue” in France. The spectrum of subjects chosen is relatively limited. Several trees seen up close, a seascape, a lighthouse, a slightly open blind, a waterfall… The artist furnishes the theme, the work proposes its variations. And for series? The painter prefers to speak of cycles because his patterns disappear and reappear periodically in his work, evoking other cycles (voyages, seasons, life…)
[…]
A final gaze at these two landscape/hommages to Munch. Here, both one and the other are criss-crossed by traces and dynamic, fevered incisions. At the same time, these heavy, disquieting hills seem to spread out like the wings of a bird. A frustrated seagull or a migrating bird? The irresistible call of what is beyond.

Itzhak Goldberg
Art Historian

Translated from French by Jean Clévenot