Je pense, donc je suis

JE PEINS, DONC JE VIS

I have been interested in art since my childhood. I liked drawing, painting and going to art museums. Turner, Dali, Zorn and Monet were some that inspired me. To claim that I am an autodidact is not completely true. Over the years I have known artists that helped me develop my skills, who inspired and encouraged me from my art teacher in school, later artists when living in Japan in my youth and others when I decided to start my career.

December 2021

Before 2019 I worked mainly with drawings, usually portraits of friends and people I knew or had met using different techniques and materials. Thereafter, even though drawing much, my focus has been on painting, my subjects mostly the landscapes close to my home in the Stockholm archipelago, still life, illustrating Japanese “waka" poems and this year birds, portraits of which some in black and white or sepia, and paintings after ideas born in my mind.

January 2023

After moving to a new house and a new studio in the very south of Sweden I began working in a new direction. I decided to start painting the canvas in one colour, having no idea of what it would be, and from there improvising as I go on accepting (almost) whatever comes into my mind painting the "absurd", mixing realism, abstract and surrealism. I also allowed myself the use of unbridled ."strong" clolours and included one or more birds in these paintings and birds have for some reason entered into my other paintings from portraits to poems as well.

July 2024

Late last yeear I did three paintings I call “Comments on Popart”, initially intended to be five but.…

I deciced to do some more paintings inspired by Japanese poems with the hope of exhibiting in Japan in the future. I still do portraits and improvised paintings, the latter to exercise my imagination, my creative right hemisphere in order to better supress the left one.

Perhaps I’m working in to many directions?

Kväll på Kallskär.jpg — Kallskär, Stockholm archipelago (70x100cm)

West cardinal mark at sunset, detail (70x100cm)

Rainstorm at Söderarm lighthouse (100x100cm)

More archipelago paintings

Autumn evening gale, Sea of Åland, northern Baltic Sea. (80x100cm)

**Morning in outer skerries (100x120cm)**

Arctic terns in the Baltic Sea details from a larger painting.;

NOVEMBER 2020

Paintings after 4 japanese “waka” poems

(100x120 cm)

perhaps it will be, that today’s troubles one day, will be sweet memories. What I used to call sorrows, I now remeber with joy.
beneath a summer sky, invisible waves moving, on a tranquil sea. So peaceful - Still I worry, suddenly it may perish.
a heartless farewell, as the early morning moon, entered the room. since that depressing moment, daybreaks fill my heart with pain.
does it worry me? the storm ripping flowers like snow, from the cherry tree. when it is i who suffers, from the snow of age in my hair.

2021 - 2022 BIRD PAINTINGS

1 + 2; Yellowed legged gull (100x50cm)+(70x100m). 3; North Atlantic Gannet (70x100cm). 4; Great Lappland owl (Strix Lapponica) (100x120cm)

5. Herons (90x120cm) 6: snowy owl (90x120cm) 7: eagle owl (90x120cm)

APRIL 2021

Natalie Maneerat 120 x 100 cm, acrylics. Worked on this painting in periods Nov. 20 - April.21

For every step (100x100cm)

For every step I take,

one less will remain,

leaves already autumn red.

As water flows from hills,

until the ocean it fills

(100x120cm)

My son has cancer,

so what can I do, but to give him my hand,

and fill it with love and care, and the hope I have,

I share

(80x100cm)

My big brother - my hero

ABSURD PAINTINGS 2022-2023

These paintings start with painting the canvas in just one saturated colour and then adding anything that comes to my mind. I have made some rules for myself: Must contain abstract and realistic elements, one or more birds, strong colours and have an absurd tone. Why titles in French?

(100x100cm)

Cher fils, qu’as-tu fait ?

(90x120cm)

D'où vient le salut?

(90x120cm)

Regarde geppetto, regarde! Une hirondelle

(90x120cm)

“companions” en danger

(90x120cm)

Mickey eSt tres content

MORE BIRD PAINTINGS 2023

acrylics 90x1200 cm started as an Improvised painting but…

whoopper swan

Haiku poem by Kobayashi Issa, ca. 1800

Acrylics 120x90 cm

kingfisher

Acrylics (120x90)

BEARDED REEDLINGS

dreams (are for the living) - MOEMOEA (no te feia ora)

I was inspired by Gaugin’s painting “Manau Tupapau- Spirits of the dead watching”, a painting that has fascinated me since my youth, hence the Tahitian name. The spirits of death in the original painting have here been replaced with a cardinal bird, a symbol of loving angels being near..

Is it all pointless?

Antonius Block: “No man can live faced with death knowing everythings nothingness”.

Death: “Most people reflect neither on death nor nothingness”.

From the bergman film “The 7th Seal” that made an impact on me when in my teens. The struggle between light and darkness, life and death and the meaning of life were questions asked my self then. In the painting I put myself in crusader Antonius Block’s place and made death faceless. The Eurasian Goldfinch symbolises life and resurrection. Bergman and one of his “daemons” are hiding in the rock and Yukio Mishimas Death Poem in the dark clouds.

Acrylics 100 x 100 cm

WOMAN WITH PURPLE HAT AND GOLDEN EARRINGS

I was commissioned to make this portrait in the style of Vermer’s “Girl with a pearl earring” but with artistic freedom and another model, my wife.

the fire station behind my house

I started this painting last year but got other commissions and when I continued this year (2023) a scaffolding had already been erected and renovation work had begun. Luckily i found some photos from last year with the worn windows and damaged plaster. Last year I decided to include birds in all my paintings, hence the two magpies who I often see there.

Acrylics 100x100 cm An improvised painting

Longue comme le queue du faisan, sont mes nuit, quand vous êtes parti.

As does the pheasant,

when the day ends also I

will go to my rest.

Long as the pheasant cock’s tail

will the hours of my night be.

Hiemaru, ca. 700 ad.

october 7th

Acrylics 100x100 cm

For whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye. ZECH 2:8

In memory of innocent Israelis and Thai farmworkers killed by Hamas terrorists October 7th, 2023. I was of course upset by this and decided to later make a painting based on “hate, evil and the forces of darkness”.

POP ART PAINTINGS

Comment on POP art 1.

It started as an improvised painting that simply chose to become pop art. So I incorporated art from various Pop artists* as well as made my own version of Campbell's tomato soup with an obligatory bird. The quote is Dali's but applies to me as well. Satisfied with the result I decided to make two more paintings in the “Pop Art“ genre on the theme of romantic love and friendship.

* Roy Lichtenstein, Christopher Wool, Robert Indiana, Edward Ruscha, KAW, Jeff Koon, Mark Rothko.

Acrylics 90x120 cm

COMMENT ON POPART 2: EROS

ACRYLICS 90x120 cm

COMMENTS ON POP ART 3: FILIA

Quottes from Albert Camus and Shakespeare

acrylics 100 x 100 cm

I will be what I will be

אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר אֶֽהְיֶ֑ה

The crucifiction of Christ with a Sefirot.

acrylic, 100 x 120cn

A lucid dream

Why so many words,

like swallows filling the sky,

are they a poem?

in my mind, almost sleeping,

I try, but can not catch them

Acrylic 100 x 100 cm Poem by Japanese poet Yosa Buson, 1716-84

IKIRU, To live

A limited time

Contemplating my life

As autumn sun sets

Starting as an improvisation, I found myself painting a stork, a symbol of birth and with it came thoughts of life, so limited in time but containing moments that seem longer than life itself.

Akira Kurosawas film “Ikiru”, is a film about the meaning of life and one of my favourites, especially the scene with the main caracter in the swing, so it had to be included. Busons poem describes the volatility of life and while painting I remembered a line from a film about life, what it had been like when looking back: “Like smoke through a keyhole”.

acrylic 100 x 100 cm Painting after a haiku poem by kobayashi issa

Pure simplicity

marks the arrival of spring

like the morning fog

Acrykics 100 x 100 cm Haiku poem by Issa written after his daughter died from smallpox:

This world of dewdrops

this fleeting world of dewdrops

and yet… and yet

Acrylics 100 x 100 cm painting after a Waka poem

“When contemplating,

thoughts penetrating inwards,

behind the autumn backdrops.

Memories, how vague they are,

but come alive in the light”.

PHOTOS

I started taking photographs at the age of 6 or 7 with my father's double-eyed Rolleiflex and later his Voigtländer Vito. When I lived and studied economics in Japan in my youth I was able to buy my first SLR, a Minolta with 3 lenses. I have mostly done nature and landscape photography and my cameras are always my companions on hikes, climbs or kayak trips. My wish for the futures is to use photography more to tell stories about people who cross my path besides capturing nice scenes in nature and near or far-away places. My years as an anaesthesiologist have given me a unique opportunity to photo-document work in the operating ward and theatres and I plan to have an exhibition in the future letting others share this environment.