Over the last year or so, I have been experimenting with some additional features in my paintings. The magic of a Norwegian winter night is hard to capture and present, so my thought was to engage in some effects that would illustrate the atmosphere of a starry night. In risk of getting a bit tacky, I thought I ought to allow myself to indulge in some flashy effects, have some fun, and perhaps offer my audience a slight touch of extra entertainment along the way. I purchased a couple of products from Andreas Wahl’s excellent online shop nerdebutikken.no and started experimenting with extremel ..read more

This post is a follow up on the previous post. Snow has been the most central feature of my works in the series of landscapes. It’s been a hallmark in which my followers has been able to recognise my works for over a decade. I felt it was time to challenge this modus and try something different. It proved to be a much more complex and difficult task than expected. The patches of snow usually simplifies and draws up the landscape, creating a wonderful dynamic. The lack thereof forced me to get stuck into a lot of tiny details. It’s hard to simplify without creating a mess. I have observed this ..read more

After more than a decade of working with snow as the focus and most prominent feature in my paintings, I came to a point where it seemed natural to explore a different approach. A photo taken on a hiking trip a few years back caught my attention, as it had the structure and clean patches of sand, gras and rocks that could step in for the discipline I get from patches of snow. I knew this would take me trough a much broader colour palette. The danger of ending up with a giant mash was imminent. So, this called for structure and discipline. Keep it simple, or … The motif is a grand lake in the a ..read more

Spring is excellent for working outdoors. The sun speeds up the drying, and makes for perfect work light. I have been working on a few commissions for ICART lately, including a series of paintings for the Artic class 6 cruise ship Viking Octantis. At the moment I’m doing two new paintings for a new ship. I will come back to this in a future post. As for now, less works are getting into my galleries, as they are mostly reserved. The outdoor option will hopefully speed things up and get more new canvases going. Here are som pictures from the batch I’m currently working on. None of these are fini ..read more

Sometimes I get into situations when a certain area seems impossible to resolve, even after several attempts. This problem might derive from a too limited scope of input. A restricted set of solutions are reserved for each individual type of area. Some very few examples being the sky and clouds, the bare fields of dry beige gras, the rocky patches, snow patches, and as in this instance: Ice drifting on water. For each type, there seem to be a protocol. A go to solution. Sometimes that falls short. It works 95% of the time, so why not here? Is there another magic tool in toolbox? Help might com ..read more

No, this is not a blog about me getting into environmentally friendly materials. It’s literally about colour. I have always had a bit of a struggle working with green, so I knew from the start this was going to be challenge. The summer of 2015 was indeed rather unusual. The hard winter left a substantial amount of snow extending the “motif hunting season” into the summer. Another curious aspect of this, was the the exchanging of the browns and beiges into different shades of green, some rather intense. Whenever the snow pulls back exposing the soil to the sun, the ground thaws and the gras wil ..read more

Fredag 14. februar opnar utstillinga “Den Store Stillheten” i Haugesund Kunstforening (lokalisert i Haugesund Billedgalleri). Denne utstillinga vil visa eit stort utvalg av større format, inkludert eit motiv frå Løkjelsvatnet i Etne. Dette er eit triptyk på 150 x 390 cm. Dette er det største enkeltverket eg har utført, og det blir interessant å sjå det presentert i den store salen på Billedgalleriet. “Den Store Stillheten” 150 x 390 cm. Verket er inspirert av eit fotografi eg fekk låna av Erling Bjarte Rullestad, og er delt inn i tre individuelle lerret. Eg har behandla dei tre delene med li ..read more

Occasionally customers approach me with the desire to have a piece made from a location of their own choice. How can I make this work for both my client and myself? What if, at the end of the line, the client decides the artwork isn’t quite like he/she imagined it? And how about taking on something that doesn’t quite go along with my style and preferences? I have made this easy for both parts by making some rather simple requirements: You may bring your own photo reference for the piece. However, I’m inclined to reject any image that doesn’t meet the standard for my production. The image doesn ..read more