SØREN MARTINSEN
NEW PAINTINGS
March 30 – April 29, 2006


Landscape painting meets psychedelic cartoon in Søren Martinsen's new paintings.

At the show in Galerie Asbaek he presents works with a fascinating and yet disturbing atmosphere.

At first his paintings seem like perfect nature studies. However, when one takes a closer look the idyll cracks. Things are not exactly how they should be. The sunlight falls in a mysterious way. Roads are leading towards unknown places. Martinsen's idylls thus evoke a certain uneasy feeling.

In the mid 1990'ies Søren Martinsen produced videos such as Into the Freetown (1996) and Shadows and Magic (1999 – about Christiania and the Copenhagen art scene.

Within the last years Martinsen has turned his attention more and more towards the medium of painting. However, his method is the same as before. His starting point is the environment that surrounds him. Here he finds specific spaces and atmospheres that fascinate him.

The fact that it is now landscapes that have become his favourite motif and theme is because Martinsen has moved from the city into the countryside.

Most of his paintings are deserted. Nature unfolds its own movements independent of human control sometimes against a background of architectonic structures such as a churchyard covered in snow by dusk.

The picture's grey tones and desertedness remind one of Vilhelm Hammershøi – exposed to idyllic horror.

In the landscapes Martinsen has found places that trig a specific psychological response. Reflect a mental condition. A fantasy. Being alone in Nature one is able to experience the thrilling feeling of confronting oneself as a human being.

In this respect his paintings refer to the tradition of Symbolism – mixed up with a more simple visual language known from the cartoon. This stylistic expression emphasizes the ambiguity in Martinsen's works.