IN SWEDISH

OLA BILLGREN
THE STUDY OF RED I, 1993

"For me, red is a 'new' color, a color with dimensions that, despite my past, I cannot claim to have anticipated with my insight - it has changed everything. And all I can say about permanently anchoring it in my personal story, is that it was my favorite color for a long time according to a child's experience and it has turned wanted out that it has combined itself with the image that perhaps fascinates me the most, the photographic [...] " From the exhibition catalogue ”Studier i rött”, Moderna Dansteatern, Stockholm, 1995.

Ola Billgren's (1940-2001) painting was constantly evolving. And how interesting will it not be to follow a painter whose main inspiration was always the photographic image, but who nevertheless shines in painterly expressions and who has managed to recapture and fascinate with the monochrome red painting? During the 1960s, Billgren reproduced his surroundings with photorealistic sharpness. It could be a detail from everyday life or a detail from an image he had seen in a newspaper, a film or in literature. The paintings were like sharp snapshots where, despite the realistic tone, he only gave the viewer a fragment of a larger motif. Many of the paintings were modest in format and are perceived almost as sections. Like we are taking part in the artist's vision, but only to an extremely limited scrap.

During the 1980s, both painting and perspective changed. The sharp photorealistic oeuvre became softer, the artist’s brushstrokes more fluid and seemingly spontaneous. Accents of colour began to vibrate across the surface and pushed Billgren's painting forward. The gaze went from detail to the all. He painted landscapes and city views and moved himself as well as the viewer up onto rooftops, and through his painting he confirmed dreamlike paintings of different urban landscapes. The perspective became broad and airy.

For Billgren, vision and the relationship between light and colour was a constant source of inspiration, regardless of whether the painting treated the small and up close or the wide and open Scandinavian landscape. This focus deepened during the 1990s. Billgren now painted almost monochrome works, where the motifs under layers of color could only be imagined. However, finally, he painted himself away also from the underlying image. How else could he have continued? In which direction lay the challenge? The photographic image was still important as a source of inspiration, but the painting's painterly effects on the canvas were given increasing weight and instead of serving as a recognition for the eye's search for the familiar, he challenged both himself and the viewer with paintings just as dreamy as they were obvious. The red paintings dazzle and at the same time open up to worlds beyond the worldly.

For further information, please contact the gallery. The work is a part of COLOURS, that runs until 23 October. Read here for more info>>