New paper works from September 2021, all made with oilsticks and on paper.
Ceramics In California And A Big New Limited Edition Print
Hi everyone, I hope you are enjoying these last days of summer.
Speaking of summer, I just used all of the bubblewrap that I collected in my studio over the past year (all art supplies are covered in it) wrapping up a lot of new ceramics that are right now somewhere between Copenhagen and California. Im super happy to be part of a group show at Legion Projects in Healdsburg. I spent most of my summer making ceramics in Oddsherred and getting to know our kiln and various glazes and yes, some of them are capable of minor disasters. Sydney from Legion Projects picked 9 pieces for the show and the rest are ready for other upcoming collaborations.
When I came back to the city and the studio I saw my avocado green steel linocut press and it looked too inviting so I made a new big blue linocut called “Woman in Sky Blue Jacket”. It’s all blue and made with etching oils and hand coloured details in gouache. Limited edition of 10 and available here.
To all my american friends: the show at Legion Projects opens mid September so do take a drive up through the wine fields to Sonoma County and Healdsburg.
Anders Scrmn
In fine Company at The Darling
Im happy to be part of the rotating art collection at The Darling Design Guesthouse here in Copenhagen. The design guesthouse is curated and designed by Uffe Buchard and features some of the most famous danish furniture designers and a long list contemporary artists like Amalie Jakobsen, Asger Dybvad Larsen, Bo Rune Madsen, Tal R, Jørgen Haugen Sørensen, Cathrine Raben Davidsen, Josefine Winding, Christian Lemmerz, Mie Olise Kjærgaard and more. You can see more about The Darling here.
Featured in Brask Studio Visits VI
Jens-Peter Brask is a Danish art collector, curator and book publisher based here in Copenhagen. I first met Jens-Peter in 2013-14 around the time I was preparing for my show “The World Was Weird”. Jens-Peter is a curious art lover who visits artists all around the world and I have always been happy to welcome him in my studio. Earlier this year in April we had fun working together on a huge mural on Valby Hallen and now I am happy to be featured in his latest book “Brask Studio Visits VI".
The book features a large group of artists:
A Kassen, Ammon Rost, Amy Bessone, Anders Scrmn Meisner, Anna Stahn, AVPD, Bennett Williams, Brian Rochefort, Chloe Wise, Christian Schmidt-Rasmussen, Craig Costello, Daniel Gibson, Danny Fox, Diana "Didi" Rojas, Ebbe Stub Wittrup, Eva Koch, Evren Tekinoktay, Hilary Pecis, Iván Navarro, James Ulmer, Jeremy Shockley, Jon Pylypchuk, Kinga Bartis, Maiken Bent, Maria Rubinke, Martin Bigum, Martin Paaskesen, Mathias Malling Mortensen, Peter Birk, Russell Nachman, Sharif Farrag, Shepard Fairey (OBEY), Taylor McKimens, Torben Ribe, Ursula Reuter Christiansen og Victor Ash.
Two new linocuts prints. "Wendy and Designer Rugs".
The scandinavian summer light is getting sucked out of the sky faster than my daughter drank her chocolate milkshake today. It always surprises me how fast it changes here. It’s only 20.00 as I write this but already dark enough for me to look out the window to look for Carolina who is still out in the garden unwilling to put the spade down. Always planting something. Seeds are like sending yourself letters that will arrive in spring.
A few weeks ago I revisited my big green steel press after the gallery had picked up the paintings for Enter Art Fair. I wanted to do two smaller prints this time (20x30 cm). The first one I did was “The Wendy Flight” which is a Peter Pan reference. The other one is a “Designer Rug” which is lifted from my recent interest in fabric patterns. I think I will be making lots of patterns this winter.
The prints are available over in my webshop here.
enjoy september
scrmn
New works for Enter Art Fair, Copenhagen
It’s the end of summer and I am happy to show a lot of new paintings at this year Enter Art Fair in Copenhagen with Hans Alf Gallery.
Most of this year the family have resided outside the city and early this summer we redid the countryside studio and painted it a crispy light blue with leftover paints from the big mural in Valby. All the new paintings were painted up here in June and July in the blue studio.
You can find all the visitor info about Enter Art Fair here. It opens thursday the 27th and runs through Sunday the 30th of August here in Copenhagen.
Enjoy the last days of summer.
Hello Philemon and Blue Kimono - two new limited edition linocut prints
Back in April I took a leap and bought a huge avocado green printing press. It’s an old school german steel “druckpresse” that can do etchings and linocuts and all other intaglio prints. Since then I have been working on two new prints and here they are.
They are now available from my webshop here.
They are printed with Charbonnel Etching ink and at one of them I couldn’t control myself and added some red gouache detail. It’s been a lot of fun to get into the art of print making again and now I know where to buy “grease” for mechanical machinery.
The two prints are named “Hello Philemon” (edition of 24) and “Blue Kimono” (edition of 8)
Big Mural in Valby, Copenhagen
This monday and tuesday I completed my largest painting to date. The new mural is on Valby Hallen a sports and concert hall here in Copenhagen. Big thanks to Jens-Peter Brask for curating the big project and to Henrik Soten for all his help with blowing this painting up to giant size. Also thanks to the Copenhagen Municipality for their support and investment in public art.
I have to add that this was way more fun that I had imagined. It was good for this indoor studio painter to get out in the elements for a bit.
Paris Blue
People familiar with my paintings will know I have had an affinity for two certain paint pigments. Cinnober Red aka vermillion Red and Paris Blue. They are both old painters favourites. Paris Blue was first synthesized as a paint in 1706 and Vermillion Red was used in ancient rome. Vermillion is the most toxic one and comes from a mercury sulfide mineral. Paris Blue is said to have initially been made from blood, potash and Iron sulfide. Layering these paris blues with Cobalt and ultra marine blues have been something I tend to return to year after year and over easter I did again which resulted in a few new gouache paintings. This week I am working on a new limited edition print - which will for sure be Paris Blue..It will be released when it’s dry very soon some time in May. If you join my mailinglist I let you know when it is :) thank you.
New pen drawings
Last time I was visiting my mom-in law in Bogota she had put out some old stationary for the kids to draw on. As those of you who knows me I am a collector of certain paper especially paper that carry some history or has an altered tone due to age and exposure to sunlight. The paper has been laying in my studio waiting for me to find it after I had lost it among all my other papers which I did recently.
Revisiting the Colombian Jungle Painting
During this national shutdown we have moved out of the city closer to the forest and Kattegat. It’s about three weeks ago and we will be here for much longer. I don’t miss city life at all. Not that city life is bad but being out here on the country side for this long put things in perspective and there is a different tranquility up here than in the city. I have never been a nature hiking sort of guy but I do like to look at nature. Especially Colombian nature. My wife’s family are from Colombia so we try to go as often as possible. Above is a picture of Carolina’s childhood finca and playground. You can see the influence in her recent work too here. Places like that are meant to enter ones work. One of my favourite things to look at is when the day turns to evening altering the color of plants making them almost black in stark contrast to what is left of daylight. In 2015 I made these gouache works on paper and I felt like looking at them the other day. Here they are.
Et åndehul i en svær tid - Anders Scrmn Meisner - Angel
Thanks to http://kunstavisen.dk/ and Connie Boe Boss for reviewing my show “Angel”. Article in Danish.
Angel installation shots and the shadow of Corona
So here I am typing on my laptop on the countryside away from the city. Schools are closed and I have started to make a large totem pole with my 6 year old kid to pass time. It’s isolation time. We throw rocks in the sea everyday and I make warm lunch - also every day. It doesnt feel much different than during summer holiday but it really is.
When I finished the last painting for my show “Angel”, which is currently hanging at Hans Alf Gallery in Copenhagen, I was trying to explain to Carolina what I thought the paintings were about. This was back in early february before all this, that is now. I told her the show was about “Hope”, or where to find such a thing. Like, where does one go for such a thing as hope? So that’s where the Angels come in. Marching in silence. Hope has for generations been tied to religion but I think there is more to it. I like to think of hope in a more animal strength kind of way. Like when you hear thunder and a loud crackle from a lightning. I like that. It’s more like that I imagine the feeling of hope can sit with us as people. Hope enters suddenly and pushes back despair - like summer rain.
Corona first really worried me when my participation in a March show (Future Memories) in Hong Kong got pushed to Autumn. That sounds selfish and I guess it was. Angel did open the 6th of March in Copenhagen, and here we are shortly after in a national lockdown. I like to think of the paintings hanging there in the middle of this national shutdown. I think…in some way, without being too theatrical about it, one of the more rewarding things about making art is that when paintings leave the studio they go and have a life somewhere else. A painting is so controlled in the hands of the painter but when they leave - well ... then they are really out on their own. They will hang on a wall, witness life and decay, parties, death, war and love. And of course - Corona crisis.
I know that many have already seen the show at Hans Alf Gallery, but of course I also know that many will not be able to. So here are some installation shots. I know that in some time the world will return to it’s normal weirdness. Thanks to Hans Alf Gallery for keeping open by appointment. My webshop runs as usual and I keep on painting out here on the countryside.
Thanks for reading and thanks for looking.
Anders Scrmn
COPENHAGEN SHOW OPENING MARCH 6th
Show in Hong Kong
I am very proud to be included in this show at City University of Hong Kong. I will contribute with several works made in the period 2013-2020.
I am also happy to have lend the title to show. “Future Memories” was part of the 2014 exhibition “The World Was Weird” at Hans Alf Gallery and is one of my larger intricate collage pieces from that period titled “Future Memories”. The show is curated by Harald Kraemer who knows my work so well so a special thanks to both Janine and Harald for their continuing interest in my work. It’s so nice to see the works being included in this show so far away from home. The show opens on March 6th and during Art Basel Hong Kong - the 16th of March there will be a book release about the show. The poster also features a work of mine from 2015 titled “Running Through The Amazon”.
About the show:
The exhibition and publication “FUTURE MEMORIES. Artistic Utopias and Dystopias on Nature” deal with the changed image of landscape and nature in contemporary art. Triggered by questions of the climate crisis and a rethinking of the challenge of a changing nature, Harald Kraemer has selected 10 inspiring positions from international artists. The exhibition is laid out as a labyrinth with two films by George Steinmann (CH) and Zheng Bo (HK) at its centre. This centre can be reached by choosing one of two ways. Depending on which path one chooses, one encounters art works by Gernot Bubenik (DE), Matthew Northridge (US), Elke Reinhuber (DE), Angela Su (HK) or Bernard Ammerer (AT), Anders Scrmn Meisner (DK), Don Ritter (CA), as well as Liao Zenping (TW).
Location:
3F, Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre 18, Tat Hong Avenue, Kowloon Tong
To stay up to date on shows, print releases etc you are very welcome to join my mailinglist here.
New Silkscreen Print - City Sleeper
In between preparing for my upcoming March show, making 99 ceramic rings and trying to stay awake during the dark scandinavian november afternoons I did have time to visit my friends Rune and Rune’s silkscreen studio. After working out there during the summer I got excited about doing more. It’s a lot of fun. This time I opted to do the image in gouache so I could work in my current element which is with brushes. The last one I did with pencils. Maybe its for nerds but the outlines gets different using a brush. Second step was driving everyone crazy finding the exact red, the exact pink, the specific indigo blue that has become my preferred blue and then of course something that gets close to the chrome oxide green that has been the color of many of my leaves since Under Distant Palmtrees. I added lots of process shots further down this blogpost.
The print is now available though my webshop here. It ships for free to the worldwide world yet without the frame as to avoid shipping glass and wood around. I hope you like it.
The Unused Love Letters
A few years ago I bought a big german Ceramic Ovn (aka Kiln) as I got the idea that it was time to expand into Ceramics. They delivered it outside my city studio on a cold winter day even though I had ordered to be delivered to my country side one in the Northern part of Zealand. I had to buy two construction workers pizza in order to convince them to drag the 200 kilo Kiln to my car and lift it inside where it barely fitted. I then proceeded to the countryside driving 60 km an hour on the highway as I was afraid my grandmothers old Ford would buckle under the weight. It didn’t but it did buckle a year later.
Then a month ago me and Carolina Echeverri got the idea to make ceramic rings in the Kiln. Ambitiously we decided to do 99 which in retrospect was a crazy idea but crazy is fun too. Hans Alf Gallery had invited me to make some ceramics for a group show that they would host and had initially asked me to do some Vases. However it’s only natural to stray from an assignment.
The Unused Love Letters was a title from a notebook of mine from 2009. So it’s actually 10 years old which has confirmed my belief in never ever to throw anything away. Titles are just words waiting for the right work to come by.
Each ring carry it’s own title. It’s own reference and direction.
The Unused Love Letters is actually Carolina and mine’s first art collaboration. That being said Carolina has always been the first one to see a new work of mine, always a guidance, critique and inspiration for me so it was very natural to cooperate on this mad project.
We hope you will join us for the opening Friday the 25th of October at Hans Alf Gallery!
oh and one more thing. Next month I am releasing a brand new silkscreen print + I will have some sort of open studio some time late november and if you are curious you can sign up to my mailinglist here.
Sitting in a night train from Hamburg thinking of medieval ceilings
The other night I was sitting in a night train to Copenhagen from Hamburg. It’s been a while since I have taken the train at night but in an attempt to save both time and the world I ended up in one. I can’t sleep while in any transit be it car, plane, train or boat since I am too tall to sit comfortable. Do transport vehicle designers hate tall people? I hope the flying sun-panel driven pods that we fly in the future are larger so I dont have to lay curled up in a white apple looking flying plastic pod?
So I have to sit and think for 6 hours in the sharp LED light and look out at the dark recently harvested fields. That can be productive or non productive. A bit of both. First off I had to think of David Berman who passed away recently. He was one of my favourite poets and musicians. I was walking along in St. Pauli and saw all the punks with their beer cans, mutty dogs and 80’s haircuts. Nose rings and Dr. Martens. So out of fashion and yet so fashionable. David Berman sings about them in the song “Punks in the beerlight” that also treats highly relevant topics like fentanyl and Adam and Eve. So whenever I see a one of those german punks I have to think of David Berman and these lyrics:
Where's the paper bag that holds the liquor?
Just in case I feel the need to puke.
If we'd known what it'd take to get here,
Would we have chosen to?
Would we have chosen to?
So you wanna build an altar on a summer night?
You wanna smoke the gel off a fentanyl patch.
Ain'tcha heard the news? Adam and Eve were Jews.
And I always loved you to the max.
Then my thoughts shifted to churches and church ceilings. I guess - maybe the trail of thought was kind of from the perspective of laying in a coffin and looking up. Which probably explains why churches that only carry closed coffins often have very boring ceilings. The churches that carry a more open coffin style have very beautiful ceilings. Me and the family stayed in a presbytery (the home of a priest (the priest didnt live there anymore)) in June in France. The ceiling was a dark indigo blue and someone had painted yellow golden stars on there. It was very nice to sleep under and prompted me to plan to paint our own ceilings in our bedroom but I’ve been too busy and the fact I need a scaffold to lay in order to paint it has put the project on hold but it will happen.
This picture kind of carry the ceiling I have in mind. I didn’t take the picture but its from “The Institure for Western Civilsation” and I would like to credit them for it. It’s from the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua in Italy and painted by Giotto. Thats the same Chapel that has “The Kiss of Judas” in it which is just an amazing painting really. The drama. A kiss followed by execution. And time has been kind to the blue sky with its grey scratches.
Anyway the church ceilings are now making their way into my paintings or at least they are in my head while I paint. Things enter the mind and have to be painted out again. I guess if one didn’t paint they would just stay in there and take up space. Clear clear sky.
If one is in the mood one can look at Giottos “Kiss of Judas” and listen to Margaritas at the mall by David Bermans “Purple Mountains”. Or just read the lyrics and look at the painting. It’s an original contemporary experience.
Margaritas at The Mall
Drawn up all my findings and I warn you they are candid
My every day begins with reminders I've been stranded
On this planet where I've landed, 'neath this gray-as-granite sky
A place I wake up blushin' like I'm ashamed to be alive
How long can a world go on under such a subtle God?
How long can a world go on with no new word from God?
See the plod of the flawed individual looking for a nod from God
Trotting the sod of the visible with no new word from God
We're just drinkin' margaritas at the mall
That's what this stuff adds up to after all
Magenta, orange, acid green
Peacock blue and mercury
Drinkin' margaritas at the mall
Standin' in the shadows of the signposts on the road
Fifty gates of understanding, forty-nine are closed
Yes, I guess this time I really hit that number on the nose
What I'd give for an hour with the power on the throne
How long can a world go on under such a subtle God?
How long can a world go on with no word from God?
See the plod of the flawed individual looking for a nod from God
Trotting the sod of the visible with no new word from God
We're just drinkin' margaritas at the mall
This happy hour's got us by the balls
Magenta, orange, acid green
Peacock blue and mercury
Drinkin' margaritas at the mall
We're drinking margaritas at the mall
Drinkin' margaritas at the mall
By David Berman (1967-2019)
French Poppies - New Silkscreen print is here
The new silkscreen print is here. It’s called French Poppies and is a 5 color print made here in Copenhagen. It’s available through my webshop here.
I have been wanting to do a limited edition print for quite some time now. I think last time I did a silk screen print was in 2015. Since then the list of mails has gotten longer and longer and I started promising people that there would be a new print in the beginning of this year. Well..Its now july and here we are. The silk screen print is here a bit delayed just like everything else.
In June I went to France to show some new paintings in a little Church. That's when I started to sketch out this silk screen print with a little vase with a french landscape inside. I like the way flowers look in the evening and the blue light does it's thing to them. Changing all the greens to greyish blues. When I came back to Copenhagen I headed out to the silk screen studio and mixed the different blues used on this print. The print has five layers. The lightest blue was the first layer that covered the whole vase and flowers. Then a darker cobalt looking blue went on top of the lightblue color leaving only the bulbs and the little moon light blue. Then the dark indigo blue went on top and then the very dark blue stars that you can see in the background. The notes, "Rochebaudin France" went on as the very last and 5th layer.
There are some process shots in my last blogpost for the curious mind.
thanks for reading all this. I hope you will have a great summer.
all the best
Anders Scrmn
now goodbye for now :)
New Silk Screen Print on its way
I’ve been wanting do a limited edition print for quite some time and I might have told some people that I would have one ready in March but that turned out to be politician speech. Now it’s almost July and I guess I made a lot of paintings in the meantime. There might also have been an issue with me spending a lot of time playing Synthesizer. It’s John Carpenters fault.
Anyway, my friends Rune and Rune from Ice Screen Printing called me up one day and invited me out to their screen printing studio and now the print is almost done. I got some process pictures as proof this time. The photos are taken a few layers of ink in, so the print still needs a few more layers. If you want a heads up for when the print walks out into the real world I would be happy if you signed up to my mailinglist here.
enjoy the summer
