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
