RECEPTION ROOM
The Fluid Substance
Interview by Lisbeth Bonde
Anette Harboe Flensburg’s art exists in a constant state of change. From one exhibition to the next, she transports her painting enterprise into ever-new eye-opening visual registers. There is, however, a unifying principle running through her oeuvre: she is a dialectical painter whose interest is turned toward antitheses - antitheses such as hard and soft, concave and convex, curved and cracked, perceived and recollected, image and after-image, appearance and disappearance. In much the same way, she is interested in the painting process’s tactile materiality and shifts between intensely incandescent and cool muted colors.
Anette Harboe Flensburg masters the technical aspects of painting in a magnificent way. In her new pictures, she makes use of architecture for the purpose of challenging the surface as illusion. The architecture’s spatial divisions, the vertical and horizontal lines, the shadow and the light constitute the grid that partitions the motive into an interior and an exterior, into a here and a there. But there is an aperture that penetrates to the other side: through the windows’ membrane, the sight is led outside to a ramification of spring-green trees. Exactly what we are looking at is uncertain, however, since the contours are vibrating and the motive has been shaken, and it all seems – one way or another - a little spooky. Is this a dream, a field of presentiment or an after-image on the retina? This cannot be unequivocally determined. Is the motive in the process of vanishing or is it rather on its way toward gaining sharpness and assuming cha-racter? This is a question that we, as viewers, inevitably have to ask ourselves.
Anette Harboe Flensburg’s new paintings deal, among other things, with the perceptual act as such and with our overall capacity for forming pictures, What are we really looking at? In what does a motive consist? How is a picture related to reality, the painter inquires.
The paintings are situated on the threshold of the abstract and the artist appears to be making use of the rooms, the light’s slantwise incursions, the shadows’ cool obscurity and the different surfaces’ varying color intensities as the occasion for abandoning herself to the act of painting.
Are you consciously striving toward beauty?
Beauty is not the aim or the actual focus, but I am
aware that my paintings can be perceived as being beautiful. And now I’m not really fighting so much against this anymore. For quite a few years, I have been somewhat keyed-up when it came to a question about beauty, because the beautiful can exist disconcertingly close to the decorative. But now I’ve come to some kind of agreement about it, since I am better able to differentiate and navigate my way between the two phenomena. As Søren Ulrik Thomsen says: "You can procure the terrible through the beautiful."
In what way are you using architecture as the starting point for your new paintings?
Previously, you often availed yourself of photographs as the point of origin for your motives which, to a great extent, revolved around recollection. Now you have shifted the focus.
Well, architecture is a motive that provides me with the opportunity for pursuing my own inclination towards what is more formal and stringent and also with continuing to work in a narrative way, albeit with yet another layer of fiction pushed in between reality and image. In this way, there is a kind of affinity with the latticework pa-
inting à la Mondrian and Newman’s stripe paintings on the one side and with Hammershøi’s understated dramas on the other. The really decisive reason for the fact that the pictures relinquish the formally abstract is that I am incorporating perspective. It tips over and becomes more psychological ... and suggestive, because you are being ushered into the room. And this affects the body in a different way than the formal flat painting, which does not possess this kind of depth. This is not to say that certain tensions and excitations cannot crop up in the confrontation with the concrete flat painting. But with the illusion about being able to come right into the room, an entirely different narrative play and drama come into existence. Moreover, I am still circling around recollection in a way and around emotion, for that matter, in the sense that the spaces can also be perceived as a kind of mental, successive order. But it is clear that with the interior paintings, I’ve been assaulting the material in a more indirect and metaphorical way than I have previously done.
Certainly, it is also an utopia about nature that is present out there, something with which most people yearn to be in contact, when you go about painting a beautiful face on the verdant forest?
You might say that, sure. But it’s really something of a somewhat peculiar, artificial nature that I am painting. Because even though I take my mark in genuine nature, as I have seen it through the house’s windows, it subsequently comes to be transformed – in the painting – into a signal or sign for the green that is out there. But you cannot see whether it’s a beech tree or a rhododendron that I’m painting, since the whole thing assumes a kind of smoldering amorphous character.The green color, on the other hand, is crucial because it launches a chain of associations and engenders a tension between outdoors and indoors, between nature and architecture, in which I’m very interested. As a contrast to Mondrian, very apropos, inasmuch as he put a ban on the color green, precisely because it referred to nature – and that’s exactly what he wanted to avoid doing.
Your rooms appear to be plausible. Are you playing any tricks on us with the perspective?
No, and if I am doing so, it’s only a little bit. I’m always very wary of the all too glaringly surreal, which can be a psychological trap that narrows the field rather than opening it up. In painting, of course, you can manipulate with everything, but I prefer the diminutive but significant displacement.
There was a time when you made use of your own biographical story. What are you using today?
I’m still making use of my own history, but where as I previously worked according to an almost archaeological principle about bringing the motive to light – and at one time, I even painted pictures from my childhood home – I have been working in a more staged way with the current paintings. To put this more specifically,I have been taking my point of departure in dollhouse models that I construct. At times, I let them remain completely empty, while on other occasions I put up different kinds of wallpaper, carpets, and so forth, after which I create photo-montages of the rooms and finally, finish building them in the painting.
The paintings inscribe themselves, with all possible legibility, into an interior tradition of which – as has been mentioned – Hammershøi is certainly the most irrefutable exponent. And I feel fine about this. At the same time, however, the paintings also articulate an attempt to bring this tradition on to an eye-level with my own time.There where the two projects most visibly and primarily differentiate themselves from one another (I would rather not penetrate further here into a discussion of the more in-depth intentions) is seated precisely in the fact that Hammershøi’s interiors take their point of origin in the artist’s own home. He was actually living inside his motive! My paintings take their point of departure in a model, an idea. For this reason, the proportions are not entirely correct. The organic patterns, the woods outside, the kaleidoscopic reflections and colors provide an almost monstrous counter-play to the more balanced regular linear elapses.I am attemp-t ing to attain a point between an almost construct-ively formal space and a significance-concentrated room, where patterns and light perforate the more stable, stationary architecture and maybe even the horizon of understanding.
The new paintings that Anette Harboe Flensburg has painted for the exhibition at the Museumsbygningen are monumental spatial images of such a kind. They also offer a commentary on the beautiful classicist building’s flow of space, which continues in a suite of rooms. What we have here, then, is form of painting installation. The starting points, of course, are the dollhouses, which the artist herself fits up and subsequently photographs. The photographs constitute sketches of a kind that set the stage for the painting. What supervenes are a number of interesting displacements with relation to scale. For example, the chair might be too large for the room r the chandelier might lack details, because it is a miniature. The spaces are deserted. They stand there unheimlich and somehow spectral, just waiting to be seized into service by the wandering gaze; it is we ourselves who come to fill the rooms with pre-sence.
What is it that has to happen before you become incited to move into the process of working?
During the idea phase, when the actual motific sphere and the rules of the game are being defined, I ought to have the feeling of some degree of control. There has to be a certain course. But in addition to this, the field must simultaneously be kept open for new inroads. It ought to be unfolding itself along the way. I must have the sense that I started out at a phase that was full of presentiment and that the actual process of painting is carrying me nearer to something about which I did not previously know the nature but which, conversely, I certainly can recognize when I do spot it. It’s a question of making use of all one’s experience, of involving as many levels of oneself as possible and of simultaneously making oneself open for the experience of something new.
A result that one herself might not even understand?
Yes, in a manner of speaking. But it ought to feel as though the picture was falling into place and as though it preserves a relevant attachment to both its own point of origin and reality’s space, while making itself independent to a degree of meaningful fiction. Which is not tantamount to saying that one understands it. You might just as well get used to it and consider: you will never fully fathom yourself or the meanings that you generate along the way.
Can this be likened to research? Where you have a thesis that you investigate and substantiate?
No, not to exact scientific investigation. But it can be likened to humanistic inquiry, like philosophy. Even more than providing ultimate answers, you see, philosophy is actually an examination about the manner in which we can formulate the questions so that they make sense. In painting, one makes an attempt to figure out how she or he can create a meaningful impact. This is why I’m really most interested in the empty spaces, in reception rooms, where the very point is that there is nobody there, like some woman with a certain facial expression whose role we are compelled to interpret. On the contrary, it is a spot where the spec- tator can enter in and place her/himself.
You are offering us a scene across which we can project our own conceptions?
Yes, but at the same time I am setting up certain limits and certain playing rules for this projecting. I’m saying: You cannot put anything whatsoever into it. Of course, you can come up with many kinds of answers to the questions I’m posing. But you cannot just answer any old way.
Your contours are never completely sharp. They almost resemble what Renaissance terminology would be sfumato, where the lines, as it were, go up in smoke. In this way, you elevate your world up into in another world, which becomes spherical. What is the purpose with this?
In one way, there’s an entirely formal explanation for this. As a painter, it's extremely interesting to delineate the transitions from the one to the other; there are many bits of information embedded there. There’s a small gray zone in between the elements.You cannot distinguish between them with a ruler. I was very inspired about one such transition when I read about new paradigms in the field of physics. And this tugged at my notions about what is happening in the border region situated between the one and the other. So the very mediation of these transitions constitutes a motive in itself. To put this in a somewhat polemical way, there are a number of photo-realists who are good at portraying the individual elements, whereas they might not be all that skilled in delineating the transitions. The upshot is that we attain a universe where the elements remain isolated from each other. Of course, there might be a point to this! But if you do not have a clear idea where you’re going with this, all you achieve is that the picture falls to pieces and becomes very rigid. Recently, as a matter of fact, I've occasionally been using mas-king tape in order to fashion a demonstratively sharp line of demarcation and I've been doing so precisely for the purpose of securing some variance from the more modulated transitions. So you see, I've also had an aim in mind with this. But I have to admit that it almost hurts to do this, because it feels completely wrong. Crossing over the border, really! But otherwise, you're correct in saying that the exaggeratedly blurry transitions play a part in creating the sense of a dreaming filter.
Yes, it seems as if there were a membrane between the viewer and the motive, as if we were to find ourselves standing in the gray zone of recollection or as if we were looking at an after-image that feels like it’s on our retina.
In 1995, I created a comprehensive project at Clausens Kunsthandel which was entitled "The Far-away in the Near". Here, I was examining that point where the particulars are just about to disappear while still barely remaining something and not something else or nothing at all. But in any event, so indistinct that the ordinary conceptual universe comes, to a certain extent, to be put out of commission.
Of course, it's certainly a paradox that we can first 'speak' about the non-linguistic, namely the pictures, when we use language.
The difference between picture and word is, putting this in a rather simple way, that the language can be set; the alphabetical character has its fixed form. And there is a distinct difference between the individual words. Paint is, on the contrary, a fluid substance that stiffens into a form, albeit preserving reminiscences of having once been a fluid substance which has been combined irreversibly with other colors. Of course you can say some-thing about the pictures, but it only applies to something about them that lives up to the formal requirements which have been posed in order to establish linguistic significance. But then there is all that remains, which is not even pre-linguistic but is merely ‘picture’ to the extent that it will always elude language.
When one stands in front of your new paintings, he/she can see that you are quite preoccupied by what is textural in the rooms you are framing.
Well, I'm generally very absorbed in putting variances into play.
What is it about space that fascinates you?
In addition to what I've already mentioned, I dream – inconceivably often - about space. I dream about whatever bodily impressions I might have in connection with being inside one certain room. Sometimes, the rooms trigger associations which specific rooms I know. But more frequently, there is just something that my mind is inventing as I dream. It might even be a nightmare, where I experience a strong sense of discomfort about being in a particular place, with the result that it has a forcible physical and mental effect. I also have a great sensitivity to whatever space I find myself to be when I am awake. I still remember almost all the rooms I've been in - especially as a child.
You're painting with many layers of oil paint. What do you attain with this way of working?
Well, I'm painting in the classical way with a ground color, which sets a kind of colorist agenda toward which - and away from which - one can play. Sometime I just let it be. But as a rule, I paint further on top of it and build up in thin layers. It's like constructing a room with fluid matter.
On the one side, you are making photographs and on the other, you're painting. Why is the painting process important to you? What can painting accomplish that photography cannot?
I actually think I'd be able to move quite far along with the aid of computer-graphic technology. So I'm not of the opinion that there is some romantic aura connected with painting. Nonetheless, there is something or other that is fruitful about the process of transforming a fluid into something solid. So many things can transpire in the course of the process that often yield something surprising and new. Also small mishaps, which will ultimately reveal themselves as adding something to the final process. The type of elaboration that is part and parcel of the layer-on-layer process has an encouraging effect on me and offers something completely special. There are also shades of color which you cannot deliberately mix up but which come into view when several layers interact. Paint is merely one material among many. But it's a really good material.
Your surfaces are very smooth. In contrast to the abstract-expressionist painters, for example, who have a conspicuous brush-script and often work with impasto and in a gesturing manner, your surfaces are almost as depersonalized and smooth as a photograph. Nonetheless, you carry this fascination for painting.
That's right, and every now and then I am told that I'm not a real painter, because I don't leave all the brush-trails there … and I really do appreciate other people's tenders with this kind of painting, but I do not have any original message to offer in this area. Moreover, there are a great many clichés connected with the painting process that I very consciously try to avoid. But as a matter of fact, I have made quite a few pictures that display trails or imprints. But then it has to do with a different kind of trail, such as the crocheted network that has been pressed down in the paint, consequently creating a new layer of indexical meaning. Then of course it seems obvious to set down the more direct trails of the body. Once again, it’s all about having a personal idea. Even if you refrain from pursuing this.
Can you tell us something about the artists who have served as an inspiration for you in your own process as a painter?
If you want to make an almost art historical review, I would start with my fascination with archaic sculpture, although I'm not a sculptor. But I adore that level of stylization - and fiction. From the Gothic period then, there is Giotto, for example. And from the Renaissance and the Baroque, I would name artists like Caravaggio, who is one of my most cherished ideals. Chardin is another. Then there's Vermeer, of course, whose aptitude for gestalting the transitions is, moreover, nothing short of modern!
Vermeer was certainly using the camera obscura for his interior studies.
Indeed, and his perspective is distinctly photographic. Moreover, you can see how blurry his pictures can be and then he's got such a pronounced sensibility, a tenderness and that imperceptibility in the rendering of the transitions: his way of building up these rooms so coherently cast in one piece.
What about Ola Billgren and Gerhard Richter?
Well, of course, it would certainly be difficult to bypass them with a project like mine. But we are talking about different kinds of influences here. As a painter, Richter is unquestionably a momentous figure, because he is so very innovative. He's done just about everything that can be done in painting. So you admire him and you study him from a comfortable distance – keeping him at an arm’s length. With Ola, it's a different kind of influence, primarily because he was in fact a friend of mine …and a colleague. Even though we talked a great deal about art, his influence was sort of indirect in a very special way, largely because he was so tactfully discreet and diplomatic whenever he expressed his opinion about anything.
Nevertheless, he really did take on such an imposing character, as an artist and as an admirably generous person. So much so that even now, when I'm painting, I wonder about what Ola might have said, were he still alive … and then I have a clear supposition about this. And in this way, a dialogue continues. Naturally, it would be so much more fun if he were still really here. I guess I have to acknowledge that he was the closest I have come to having a genuine father figure as a painter. It's not that I'm aspiring to paint like him. As a matter of fact, we were very different. But it's because through a good many years, he followed the course of my development and supported me, also with the discreet criticism. And for this reason, the sense of loss cuts deep. And my project involving finding my own special place as a painter still prevails. This was also the way it always was for Ola himself - for example, in relation to Richter. Ola was in incessant motion, eternally searching. That's why it was always incredibly interesting to talk to him.
How can art make a difference?
Art can express something about the experiences that are universal, in one way, and current, while at the same time, there are fissures facing in toward something ineffable, unique and profoundly personal. Art can transgress the isolation and hone the sensitivity. It can make the world larger and sometimes even more beautiful. Art can engender certain condensations of meaning and infoldnings, that we can just keep right on unfolding. I don't know if it can do so much more than that, really. But that’s already quite a bit.
Translated by Dan A. Marmorstein
Lisbeth Bonde is an art critic and journalist
MODTAGELSESRUM
Det flydende stof
Interview af Lisbeth Bonde
Anette Harboe Flensburgs kunst er i konstant forvandling. Fra udstilling til udstilling flytter hun sit maleprojekt over i nye, øjenåbnende, visuelle registre. Men der løber en rød tråd gennem hendes værk: Hun er en dialektisk maler, der interesserer sig for modsætninger. Modsætninger som mellem blødt og hårdt, konkavt og konvekst, kurvet og knækket, sanset og erindret, billede og efterbillede, tilsynekomst og forsvinding, ligesom hun interesserer sig for maleprocessens taktile stoflighed og skifter mellem glødende intense farver og kølige, dæmpede farver. Anette Harboe Flensburg behersker maleriets tekniske sider suverænt, og i hendes nye billeder bruger hun arkitekturen til at udfordre fladen som illusion.
Arkitekturens ruminddelinger, de lodrette og vandrette linjer, skyggen og lyset er det grid, der inddeler motivet i et indenfor og et udenfor, i et her og et der. Men der er hul igennem til den anden side: Gennem vinduernes membran ledes blikket ud til et grenværk af forårsgrønne træer. Det er imidlertid usikkert, hvad vi ser, for konturerne vibrerer, og motivet er rystet, og det hele forekommer på en eller anden måde lidt spooky. Er det en drøm, et anelsesfelt eller et efterbillede på nethinden? Det kan ikke afgøres entydigt. Er motivet på vej til at forsvinde, eller er det snarere på vej til at vinde skarphed og træde i karakter? Det spørgsmål må vi som betragtere uvægerlig stille os selv. Anette Harboe Flensburgs nye malerier handler bl.a. om selve synsakten og om vores generelle evne til at danne billeder. Hvad er det egentlig, vi ser? Hvori består et motiv? Hvordan forholder et billede sig til realiteten? spørger maleren. Malerierne står på tærsklen til det abstrakte, og kunstneren synes at bruge rummene, lysets skrå indfald, skyggernes kølige mørke og fladernes forskellige farveintensitet som anledning til at give sig hen til maleakten.
Tilstræber du skønheden bevidst?
Skønheden er ikke målet eller det egentlige fokus, men jeg er godt klar over, at mine billeder også kan opleves som skønne, og nu kæmper jeg ikke længere så meget imod. I nogle år har jeg været lidt anspændt i forhold til det skønne, fordi det kan ligge foruroligende tæt på det dekorative.
Men jeg er kommet mere overens med det nu, fordi jeg bedre selv kan sondre og navigere mellem de to fænomener. Som Søren Ulrik Thomsen siger: "Man kan formidle det grusomme gennem det skønne".
Hvorfor bruger du arkitekturen som afsæt for dine nye malerier? Før i tiden anvendte du ofte fotografier som udgangspunkt for dine motiver, som i høj grad kredsede om erindringen. Nu har du flyttet fokus.
Ja, arkitekturen er et motiv, som dels giver mig mulighed for at følge min tilbøjelighed til det mere formelle og stramme og dels til fortsat at arbejde narrativt, men med endnu et lag af fiktion skudt ind mellem virkelighed og billede. På den måde er der en slags slægtskab med gittermaleriet à la Mondrian og Newmans stribemaleri på den ene side, og Hammershøis lavstemte dramaer på den anden side. Den helt afgørende grund til at billederne slipper det formelt abstrakte er, at jeg indarbejder perspektivet. Det tipper over og bliver mere psykologisk, suggestivt fordi man bliver ført ind i rummet, og det påvirker kroppen på en anden måde end det formelle flademaleri, der ikke har denne dybde. Ikke at der ikke kan opstå spændinger og pirringer i mødet med det konkrete flademaleri, men med illusionen om at kunne komme ind i rummet opstår der et helt andet narrativt spil og drama. I øvrigt kredser jeg for så vidt stadig om erindringen, og følelsen for den sags skyld, på den måde forstået at rummene også kan opleves som en slags mental, successiv orden. Men det er klart, at jeg med interiørmalerierne har angrebet stoffet mere indirekte og metaforisk end tidligere.
Det er jo også en utopi om naturen, der findes derude, og som de fleste længes efter at være i kontakt med, når du sådan maler en smuk udsigt til den vårgrønne skov?
Ja, men det er jo sådan en lidt speciel, artificiel natur, jeg maler. For selv om jeg tager afsæt i den virkelige natur, som jeg har set gennem husets vinduer, så bliver det i maleriet forvandlet til et signal eller tegn om det grønne derude. Men man kan ikke se, om det er et bøgetræ eller en Rhododendron jeg maler, fordi det hele antager en slags ulmende, amorf karakter. Den grønne farve er derimod vigtig, fordi den starter en række associationer og skaber en spænding mellem ude og inde, natur og arkitektur feks., som jeg er interesseret i. I modsætning til Mondrian meget apropos, som bandlyste den grønne farve, fordi den refererede til naturen - og det ville han netop undgå.
Dine rum virker sandsynlige. Du driller ikke med perspektivet?
Nej, og hvis jeg gør, er det kun ganske lidt. Jeg er altid meget på vagt over for det alt for grelt surreelle, der kan være en psykologisk fælde, som snævrer feltet ind frem for at åbne det. I maleriet kan man jo manipulere med alt, men jeg foretrækker den lille, men signifikante forskydning.
Engang gjorde du brug af din egen biografiske historie. Hvad bruger du i dag?
Jeg gør stadig brug af min egen historie, men hvor jeg før arbejdede efter et næsten arkæologisk princip om at finde frem til motivet - jeg har også på et tidspunkt malet billeder fra mit barndomshjem - så har jeg med de aktuelle malerier arbejdet mere iscenesættende. Konkret har jeg taget udgangspunkt i dukkehusmodeller, som jeg bygger op. Til tider lader jeg dem være helt tomme, men andre gange sætter jeg diverse tapeter op, gulvtæpper osv., hvorefter jeg laver fotomontager af rummene og endelig bygger dem færdige i maleriet. Malerierne skriver sig med al mulig tydelighed ind i en interiørtradition, hvor som sagt Hammershøi nok er den mest oplagte eksponent, og det har jeg det helt fint med. Men samtidig er de også et forsøg på at bringe denne tradition på øjenhøjde med min egen samtid. Der hvor de to projekter mest synligt og primært adskiller sig (de mere dybtgående intentioner vil jeg ikke gå nærmere ind i en diskussion af) ligger netop i, at Hammershøis interiørmalerier tager sit udgangspunkt i hans eget hjem. Han boede simpelthen i sit motiv! Mine malerier tager udgangspunkt i en model, en ide. Proportionerne er derfor ikke korrekte, de organiske mønstre, skoven derude, de kalejdoskopiske spejlinger og farverne giver et næsten monstrøst modspil til de mere afbalancerede regelmæssige linieforløb. Jeg søger at nå et punkt mellem et næsten konstruktivt formelt rum og et betydningsmæssigt fortættet rum, hvor mønstre og lys perforerer den mere stabile, stationære arkitektur og måske også forståelseshorisont.
De nye malerier, som Anette Harboe Flensburg har malet til Museumsbygningen, er sådanne monumentale rumbilleder, der også kommenterer den smukke, klassicistiske bygnings flow af rum, der fortsætter en suite. Der bliver således tale om en form for maleriinstallation. Udgangspunktet er altså dukkehuse, som hun selv indretter og derefter fotograferer. Fotografierne er en slags skitse, der lægger op til maleriet. Der sker nogle interessante skalaagtige forskydninger. F.eks. kan stolen være for stor til rummet, ligesom lysekronen mangler detaljer, fordi den er en miniature. Rummene er menneskeforladt. De står unheimlich og lidt spøgelsesagtigt og venter på at blive taget i brug af det vandrende blik. Vi fylder selv rummene med nærvær.
Hvad skal der til før du bliver ægget i arbejdsprocessen?
I idefasen hvor selve motivkredsen og spillereglerne bliver defineret, skal jeg helst have fornemmelsen af nogenlunde kontrol. Der skal være en bestemt kurs, men derudover skal feltet samtidigt holdes åbent for nye indfald. Det skal helst folde sig ud undervejs. Jeg skal have fornemmelsen af, at jeg startede på et anelsesfyldt stadie, og at selve maleprocessen bringer mig tættere på noget, jeg ikke vidste, hvad var, men som jeg omvendt godt kan genkende, når jeg ser det. Det er et spørgsmål om at bruge al sin erfaring, at involvere så mange niveauer af sig selv som muligt og samtidig gøre sig åben over for at erfare noget nyt.
Et resultat, man måske ikke selv forstår?
Ja på en måde, men det skal føles, som om billedet falder på plads. At det bevarer en relevant tilknytning både til sit eget udgangspunkt og til virkelighedens rum, men at det selvstændiggør sig i en grad af meningsfuld fiktion. Hvilket ikke er det samme, som at man forstår det. Man kan lige så godt besinde sig på, at man aldrig kommer til bunds i hverken sig selv eller de betydninger, man genererer undervejs.
Kan det sammenlignes med forskning? At man har en tese, man udforsker og underbygger?
Ikke den eksakte, naturvidenskabelige forskning. Men det kan sammenlignes med humanistisk forskning, f.eks. filosofi. For filosofi er en undersøgelse af, hvordan vi kan formulere spørgsmålene, så det giver mening, mere end det er egentlige svar. I maleriet forsøger man at finde ud af, hvordan man kan lave et meningsfuldt anslag. Derfor er jeg også mest interesseret i de tomme rum, i modtagelsesrum, hvor pointen er, at der ikke er nogen til stede, f.eks. en kvinde med et bestemt ansigtsudtryk, hvis rolle vi skal tolke. Tværtimod er det et sted, hvor tilskuerne kan gå ind og placere sig selv.
Du giver os en scene, som vi selv kan projicere vores forestillinger over i?
Ja, men samtidigt sætter jeg nogle grænser og nogle spilleregler op for denne projicering. Jeg siger: Du kan ikke lægge hvad som helst i det. Du kan godt give mange typer svar på de spørgsmål, jeg stiller, men du kan ikke svare hvad som helst.
Dine konturer er aldrig helt skarpe. De ligner næsten det, man på renæssancesprog kalder sfumato, dvs. linjerne går ligesom op i røg. Dermed løfter du din verden ind i en anden verden, det bliver sfærisk. Hvad er formålet med det?
Der er dels en helt formel forklaring på det. Som maler er det uhyre interessant at skildre overgangene fra det ene til det andet, der ligger mange informationer indlejret. Der er en lille gråzone imellem tingene. Du kan ikke sondre mellem dem med en lineal. En overgang var jeg meget inspireret af at læse om nye paradigmer inden for fysikken, og det rykkede ved mine forestillinger om hvad der sker i grænselandet mellem det ene og det andet. Så selve formidlingen af disse overgange er et motiv i sig selv. Lidt polemisk sagt er der en del fotorealister, der er gode til at skildre de enkelte ting, men måske knap så gode til at skildre overgangene. Så får man et univers, hvor tingene står isoleret over for hinanden. Det kan selvfølgelig være en pointe. Men hvis ikke man har en klar ide med det, så opnår man blot, at billedet falder fra hinanden og bliver meget stift. Men på det seneste har jeg faktisk ind imellem ligefrem brugt tape for at lave en demonstativ skarp demarkationslinie, og det har netop været for at opnå en forskel fra de mere modulerede overgange. Jeg har altså haft en hensigt med det, men jeg må ind rømme, at det næsten gjorde ondt at gøre det, fordi det føles helt forkert. Faktisk grænseoverskridende. Men ellers har du ret i, at de overdrevent slørede overgange er med til at skabe fornemmelsen af et drømmende filter.
Ja, det virker, som om der er en membran mellem betragteren og motivet, som om vi befinder os i erindringens gråzone, eller som om vi ser på et efterbillede, der befinder os på vores nethinde.
I 1995 lavede jeg et helt projekt i Clausens Kunst- handel, der hed "Det fjerne ved det nære". Her undersøgte jeg det punkt, hvor tingene er tæt på at forsvinde, men stadig lige akkurat er noget og ikke noget andet eller ingenting. Men i alt fald så utydelig, at den normale begrebsverden i et vist omfang blev sat ud af spil.
Ja, det er jo et paradoks, at vi jo først kan tale om det ikke-sproglige, nemlig billederne, når vi anvender sproget.
Forskellen mellem billede og ord er helt banalt sagt, at sproget kan sættes. Bogstavet har sin faste form, og der er tydeligt forskel mellem de enkelte ord. Maling er derimod et flydende stof, der stivner i en form, men vil bevare reminiscenser af at være et flydende stof, som blander sig irreversibelt med andre farver. Man kan altså godt sige noget om billederne, men det er kun det ved billederne, der lever op til de formelle krav, der stilles for at kunne danne sproglig betydning. Men så er der resten, som ikke engang er førsprogligt, men bare i den grad billede, at det altid vil unddrage sig begreberne.
Når man står foran dine nye billeder, kan man se, at du er meget optaget af det stoflige i de rum, du gestalter.
Ja, jeg er generelt meget optaget af at sætte forskelle i spil.
Hvad er det ved rum, som fascinerer dig?
Ud over det, jeg har fortalt, så drømmer jeg ufattelig tit om rum. Det handler om, hvilken kropslig fornemmelse jeg har af at være i et bestemt rum. Nogle gange minder rummene om konkrete rum, jeg kender. Men ofte er det bare noget, min hjerne opfinder, når jeg drømmer. Det kan være mareridtsagtigt, hvor jeg oplever et stærkt ubehag ved at være et bestemt sted, så det har en voldsom fysisk og mental påvirkning. Også i vågen tilstand har jeg en stor sensibilitet over for rum, jeg befinder mig i. Jeg husker stadig næsten alle de rum, jeg har været i - ikke mindst som barn.
Du maler med mange lag oliemaling. Hvad opnår du derved?
Ja, jeg maler klassisk med en bundfarve, der sætter en slags koloristisk dagsorden, som man kan spille op til og op imod. Nogle gange lader jeg den stå. Men som regel maler jeg videre på den og bygger op i tynde lag. Det er som at bygge et rum med flydende materie.
På den ene side fotograferer du, og på den anden side maler du. Hvorfor er maleprocessen vigtig for dig? Hvad kan maleriet, som fotografiet ikke kan?
Jeg tror egentlig, at jeg kunne komme ganske langt med de computergrafiske teknikker, så jeg mener ikke, der knytter sig nogen romantisk aura til det at male. Alligevel er der et eller andet produktivt ved processen at transformere et fluidum til noget fast. Der kan ske så mange ting under processen, som giver noget overraskende nyt. Også små uheld, der til sidst vil vise sig at give noget i slutprocessen. Den type elaborering, der ligger i lag-på-lag-processen, virker befordrende for mig og giver noget helt specielt. Der er også farvenuancer, man ikke kunne blande sig til, men som opstår, når mange lag spiller sammen. Malingen er blot et materiale blandt mange, men det er et rigtig godt materiale.
Dine flader er meget jævne. I modsætning til f.eks. de abstrakte-ekspressive malere, der har en tydelig penselskrift og ofte arbejder pastost og gestisk, så er dine flader næsten depersonaliserede og jævne som et fotografi. Og alligevel har du denne fascination af maleriet?
Ja, og jeg får også til tider at vide, at jeg ikke er en rigtig maler, fordi jeg ikke har penselsporene med..... og jeg kan egentlig godt lide andres bud på den form for maleri, men jeg har ikke selv noget originalt bud på det. I øvrigt er der mange klichéer forbundet med maleprocessen, som jeg bevidst søger at undgå. Men faktisk har jeg lavet ikke så få billeder, der bærer spor eller aftryk, men så er det en anden slags spor. Som f.eks. hæklede netværk, som er trykt ned i malingen og på den måde skaber et nyt lag af indeksikal betydning. Så selvfølgelig kan det være oplagt at sætte mere direkte spor af kroppen. Det gælder igen om at have en personlig ide. Også hvis man undlader det.
Vil du fortælle om kunstnere, som har inspireret dig i din egen proces som maler?
Hvis man skal lave en næsten kunsthistorisk gennemgang, så kan jeg starte med min fascination af arkaisk skulptur, skønt jeg ikke er billedhugger. Men jeg elsker denne grad af stilisering - og fiktion. Fra gotikken er der f.eks. Giotto, og fra renæssancen og barokken kan jeg nævne kunstnere som Caravaggio, der er et af mine største forbilleder, Chardin et andet. Så er der Vermeer selvfølgelig, hvis evne til at gestalte overgange i øvrigt er meget moderne.
Vermeer brugte jo også camera obscura til sine interiørstudier.
Ja, hans perspektiv er tydeligvis fotografisk. Man kan i øvrigt se, hvor slørede hans billeder er, og så har han en udpræget sensibilitet, en blidhed og umærkelighed i skildringen af overgangene. Måden at bygge disse helstøbte rum på.
Hvad med Ola Billgren og Gerhard Richter?
Selvfølgelig, de er jo svære at komme uden om med et projekt som mit. Men det har været en forskellig slags indflydelse. Som maler er Richter jo en vigtig figur, fordi han er så innovativ, har gjort næsten alt, man kan med maleriet, så ham beundrer og studerer man på afstand - holder ud i strakt arm. Med Ola er det anderledes, primært fordi han jo var en personlig ven og kollega, og selv om vi talte meget om kunst, så var hans indflydelse næsten indirekte på en helt særlig måde, fordi han var så fintfølende diskret og diplomatisk, når han udtalte sig om noget. Alligevel trådte han jo meget i karakter, som kunstner og som et beundringsværdigt generøst menneske. Så meget, at jeg når jeg maler stadig tænker på, hvad Ola mon ville sige, hvis han stadig levede… og så har jeg en klar formodning om det, og kan på den måde fortsætte en dialog. Den ville selvfølgelig være meget sjovere, hvis han virkelig var her endnu. Jeg må nok erkende, at han var det tætteste, jeg har været på at have en egentlig faderfigur som maler. Ikke fordi jeg tilstræbte at male som ham, vi var faktisk meget forskellige, men fordi han igennem mange år fulgte min proces og støttede mig, også med den diskrete kritik. Og derfor er savnet dybt, og mit projekt med at finde mit særlige sted som maler, stadig nærværende. Det var det også altid for Ola selv, f.eks. i forhold til Richter. Han var i evig bevægelse, søgende, og derfor altid utrolig interessant at tale med.
Hvordan kan kunsten gøre en forskel?
Kunsten kan udtrykke noget om de erfaringer, der på en måde er almene og aktuelle, samtidig med at der er sprækker ind til noget usigeligt, enestående, dybt personligt. Den kan overskride isolationen, og skærpe sensibiliteten. Den kan få verden til at blive større, og nogen gange oveni købet smukkere. Den kan skabe nogle betydningsfortætninger og indfoldninger, som vi kan blive ved med at folde ud. Så ved jeg ikke om den kan så meget andet, men det er vel heller ikke så lidt.
Lisbeth Bonde er kunstkritiker og journalist