The old classical manner, in which the artist - overwhelmed by reality - poured
his experience into the work of art, is no more. Today it is hard to define
where the borders between the creative and the performing artist lie. The wise
are not too far off the mark when they claim that art is born of art. The claim
is certainly not unjustified as far as the Faeroese painter Kan Svensson is
concerned. He grew up in the days when Faeroese art was really making its mark
with authority, and he was not unaware of how the neoclassical painter Ingalvur
av Reyni was transforming the landscape of the islands into powerful artistic
syntheses. Kari Svensson has observed, absorbed and understood. He has understood
how that standard motif of the Faeroe Islands - the rocks, the village and the
skies can be expressed in an artistic formula.
The motif of the Faeroese village contains such powerful artistic elements
that it inevitably has a magnetic pull on many Faeroese painters. For those
who do not simply overlook it, it is a great challenge. And Kari Svensson is
one of them, an artist who has gone into a daring clinch with that challenge.
It is in his work as a colourist that one meets Kari's Svensson's creative unease.
Up until a few years ago the Faeroese landcape was full of strongly accented
colours, because the village houses were often painted in strong shiningly colours.
Nowadays people have become more discreet in their tastes. But the colours live
on in the mind and the minds eye. And that is the colouring that Kari Svensson
retains, in a searching and passionate relationship. His use of colours gives
one a sense of the fine interplay between the delicate changes in the atmosphere
and the dramatic violence of the geological formations.
The artists of these islands love to create vertical paintings, because the
horizontal is on every side. They are born with sea horizons within them. If
the historian Gombrich is to be believed when he claims that the observer cannot
help seeing motives and meaning in even the simplest structure, then we see
people in these landscapes. In Karr Svensson's work we do not have to make the
effort of imagining this motif, his crisp drawings upon the coloured background
suggest it. But one might also say that this is Kari Svensson's underlying motif,
as it is with most Faeroese painters. One of the reasons for the fertility one
experiences in Faeroese art is that nature has so powerful an appeal for their
descriptive artists. But the values of the motif can lead towards uniformity.
Which means that the excellent conditions they are faced with are something
of a menace to the Faeroese painter. To take up the struggle with them demands
a character that will run risks, and willpower, both of which are to found in
Kari Svensson.
Art Quotations
Art is not a pastime but a priesthood. Jean Cocteau
The old classical manner, in which the artist - overwhelmed by reality - poured
his experience into the work of art, is no more. Today it is hard to define
where the borders between the creative and the performing artist lie. The wise
are not too far off the mark when they claim that art is born of art. The claim
is certainly not unjustified as far as the Faeroese painter Kan Svensson is
concerned. He grew up in the days when Faeroese art was really making its mark
with authority, and he was not unaware of how the neoclassical painter Ingalvur
av Reyni was transforming the landscape of the islands into powerful artistic
syntheses. Kari Svensson has observed, absorbed and understood. He has understood
how that standard motif of the Faeroe Islands - the rocks, the village and the
skies can be expressed in an artistic formula.
