Earth Was Found Nowhere

earth was found nowhere

Paintings BY P谩ll S贸lnes

earth was found nowhere

Paintings BY Páll Sólnes

Text: Erik Rynell Doctor, SENIOR lecturer, Lund university Guðmundur Oddur Magnússon Professor at The Icelandic Academy of The Arts PHOTOGRAPHS: LARS JACOB JAKOBSSON

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ike to find a place to leave for someone else to finish When I’m playing, I’m never through. It’s unfinished. I l fectly good spot for someone else to come in – like, it. That’s where the high comes in. If I know I left a per your plans! Specially when you put all that time in. there it is! – then sometimes they don’t come in. Sell out d, Bob, don’t fish around for a tone centre.

I was talkin’ to Bob Berg [sax in the current band]. I sai doo-dur-dum- trying to find the key. The key is There’s certain numbers where he just stands up and goes and finish what somebody’s left. Don’t just play till already there! I say, Bob, when you start playing just try round. Play flatted fifths. I hate flatted fifths. it dies. If he tries to find a tone centre, he’ll just fuck a Miles Davis in hing.

– It has to fit the chord, the day, the weather and everyt an interview with Richard Cook, NME, 1985

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THE CHEMISTRY OF PAINTING

BY GUÐMUNDUR ODDUR MAGNÚSSON PROFESSOR AT THE ICELANDIC ACADEMY OF THE ARTS

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n my mind the art of painting is nothing but an alchemical process – the magic of infusing matter with spirit and heart and that part has to be true in order to be beautiful. If you can’t paint from the heart you can’t paint at all. If you are not driven by the inner light – the vision of unborn reality – you are not really creative. That was the core of the romantic movement of the 19th century and that is also a timeless understanding of creativity. This innate, but so often suppressed, intuition which dares the soul to go beyond what the eyes can see. In my mind that is what Caspar David Friedrich, the icon of 19th century romanticism, meant: “The pure, frank sentiments we hold in our hearts are the only truthful sources of art. A painting which does not take its inspiration from the heart is nothing more than futile juggling.”

This is exactly the way Páll Sólnes paints and he has always painted with emotional intensity. The core in Sólnes’ paintings is the light, often bursting into flames from a point in between the sky and earth materials. He observes landscape intensely, and his acute visual observations of form, space and colour in nature are part of the visual memories he draws upon while painting. What one colour does to another and what they do to each other in terms of space and interaction. The earth in the paintings is represented by dark umbra pigments, burned and raw and the sky is depicted with King’s blue light, cobalt blue, French ultramarine, intense turquoise or turquoise blue. A single dash of a bright colour found nowhere else in the painting seems to anchor and create equilibrium in the whole composition, most often based on permanent carmine, Indian yellow or perhaps permanent yellow deep on the top.

But his way of expressing himself is more complex than mere romanticism. He can easily be classified as an abstract expressionist for at least two

reasons. One is about spontaneity or the impression of spontaneity and the other is about spirituality. Abstract art clearly implies the expression of ideas concerning the spiritual, the unconscious and the mind. Although the term “abstract expressionism” was first applied to American art in 1946 by the art critic Robert Coates, it had been used in Germany in 1919 in the magazine Der Stürm regarding German expressionism. In the United States, Alfred Barr was the first to use this term in 1929 in relation to the works of Wassily Kandinsky. This should remind us that all the main pioneers of abstract art, Piet Mondrian and Kashmir Malewitch, were deep into theosophy. The source of their fundamental creativity is spiritualism.

The spirit of our times, at the turn of a new century, have so far not been so much about something fundamentally creative or “new”. They have been creative for sure, but in a different way. They have been about manipulating existing forms and ideas. Putting them into new contexts or seeing them from new or different points of view, stating that ideas are not in reality original – it is just the way we process them, execute them, perform them that makes the artwork original and, at the same time, personal or not. We have in many ways dematerialized the art object. Even by stating that painting is dead! Once this question was asked in art school and the wise old teacher scratched his head. “Dead? How can it be dead? Painting is just a medium like video–art or installations. It does not matter what kind of medium you use – IF, you are expressing something of a true nature.

“If you can’t paint from the heart – you can’t paint at all” also means if you can’t PLAY from the heart you can’t play at all! You put the emphasis on the spontaneous, the automatic forces. We can, of course, trash all these classifications and categorizations of 19th century romanticism, abstract ex-

pressionism etc… Yesterday is like another country – the borders are now closed. Emptiness, white canvases, tabula rasa, nothingness, “earth was found nowhere nor the heavens above”. An opportunity for creation, here and now. An imaginary line is drawn, often slightly tilted, representing a horizon that reflects heaven and earth, between the vertical boarders of two-dimensional space, harmonies of blue notes, from the light tones of king’s blue, deep rich blue in the background and colours of earth in the foreground. In the mid-ground a focus is on the glowing splash of permanent carmine red with a tad of yellow or white. You look into the light and a new life is born.

Thus is the nature of improvisation. “The key to creativity is a bad memory,” Miles Davis once said, which reminds us of the forces of improvisation.

But behind all geniuses, like Miles, are tens of thousands of often painstaking hours. Páll Sólnes was born in northern Iceland during the fifties of the last century. We come from the same neighbourhood and have known each other since we were teenagers. Looking directly towards the east from the tower chamber of Páll Sólnes’ childhood house in his native town you see a smooth mountain with rocky cliffs, not at the top, but in the middle part in the gaze towards the east. That line of gaze is hypnotic and Sólnes once painted that sight for me in warm and hot colours. This line also marks the sunrise. Even then Páll was obsessed with the sun and, at his first exhibition in the early seventies in the cellar of our college, he put up an ink drawing with the title – “The rise of the sun seen from the point of view of the sun itself” – with shadows falling away from you. The world inside you is reflected by the world outside you. Páll Sólnes works now in the flatlands of southern Sweden, in solitude, far away from his subject and paints only what he sees within him.

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Målandets kemi AV GUÐMUNDUR ODDUR MAGNÚSSON PROFESSOR VID ISLANDS KONST AKADEMI

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min tankevärld är konsten att måla inget annat än en alkemisk process, magin i att ingjuta sinne och hjärta i materia. Och den komponenten måste vara genuin för att vara vacker. Om du inte kan måla från hjärtat kan du inte måla alls. Om du inte drivs av det inre ljuset – en vision om en ofödd verklighet - är du inte genuint kreativ. Detta utgjorde kärnan i 1800 talets romantiska konströrelse och detta är även en tidlös förståelse av kreativitet.

Denna medfödda men ofta undertryckta intuition utmanar själen att se bortom det ögat kan se. Enligt min uppfattning är det är vad Caspar David Friedrich, ikonen för 1800 talets romantik, syftade på: “ En målning som inte hämtar sin inspiration från hjärtat är inget annat än ett meningslöst taskspeleri. De rena, uppriktiga känslor vi har i våra hjärtan är konstens enda verkligt sanna källa.”

Det är precis på det sättet Páll Sólnes målar och han har alltid målat med emotionell intensitet. Kärnan i Sólnes målningar är ljuset, som ofta flammar upp i lågor från en position mellan himlen och den jordiska materian. Han iakttar landskapet intensivt och hans skarpsinniga och visuella observationer av naturens form, rymd och färger är en del av de visuella minnen han tar i anspråk när han målar, vad den ena färgen gör med den andra och hur dessa färger påverkar varandra i fråga om rymd och interaktion. Jord framställs i hans målningar med pigment av mörk umbra, bränd och rå, medan himlen gestaltas i ett ljus av kungsblått, koboltblått, fransk ultramarin, intensiv turkos eller turkosblått. Ett enstaka stråk av en ljus färg, som man inte hittar någon annanstans i målningen, tycks förankra och skapa jämvikt i hela kompositionen, som oftast är grundad med permanent karmin, och krönt med indiskt gult eller kanske mörkt permanentgult.

Men sättet han uttrycker sig på tar sig mer komplexa vägar än enbart genom romantiken. Av minst två anledningar kan han mycket väl klassificeras

som en abstrakt expressionist. Den ena handlar om spontanitet eller en förnimmelse av spontanitet och den andra handlar om andlighet. Abstrakt konst ger helt klart ett uttryck för idéer som relaterar till en andlig essens, till sinnet och det omedvetna. Även om termen “abstrakt expressionism” tillämpades första gången på amerikansk konst 1946 av konstkritikern Robert Coates, hade den använts i Tyskland 1919 i tidskriften Der Sturm om tysk expressionism. I Förenta Staterna var Alfred Barr först med att använda denna term 1929 om Wassily Kandinskys verk. Detta erinrar om att alla av de viktigaste pionjärerna inom abstrakt konst, såsom Piet Mondrian och Kasimir Malevitj, var djupt intresserade av teosofi. Andlighet är källan till deras grundläggande kreativitet.

Sedan millenniumskiftet har tidsandan än så länge inte handlat så mycket om någonting grundläggande kreativt eller “nytt”. Det har varit en kreativ period, naturligtvis, men på ett annat sätt.

Det har handlat om att hantera befintliga former och idéer, sätta in dem i nya sammanhang eller betrakta dem från nya eller annorlunda synvinklar.

Tesen verkar vara att idéer i sig inte är originella - det är bara sättet vi bearbetar, verkställer och utför dem på som gör konstverket originellt och, på samma gång, personligt eller inte. Vi har på många sätt dematerialiserat konstföremålet. Även genom att förklara målarkonsten död! Denna fråga ställdes en gång i en konstskola och den gamle kloke läraren kliade sig i huvudet. “Död? Hur kan den vara död? Målarkonsten är bara ett medium liksom videokonst och installationer. Det spelar ingen roll vilken typ av medium du använder – förutsatt att det du uttrycker är av en sann natur” Om du inte kan måla från hjärtat - då kan du inte måla alls, vilket även betyder att om du inte kan leka från hjärtat så kan du inte leka alls! Du måste lägga tonvikten på det spontana, de instinktiva krafterna. Vi kan, naturligtvis, slänga bort alla des-

sa klassificeringar och kategoriseringar av 1800 talets romantik, av den abstrakta expressionismen osv. Gårdagen är som ett annat land - gränserna är nu stängda. Tomhet, en vit duk, tabula rasa, intighet, “Jord fanns icke, himmel ej heller”. En möjlighet för skapande, här och nu. En imaginär linje dras, ofta obetydligt lutande, föreställande en horisont som reflekterar himmel och jord, mellan de vertikala gränserna i en tvådimensionell rymd, harmonier av blue notes, allt ljusa toner av kungsblått till djupa fylligt blåa i bakgrunden och jordfärger i förgrunden. I mittpartiet ligger fokus på ett glödande stänk av permanent karminrött med en smula gult eller vitt. Du ser in i ljuset och ett nytt liv föds.

Sådan är improvisationens natur. “Nyckeln till kreativitet är ett dåligt minne, “ sade Miles Davis en gång, vilket påminner oss om improvisationens styrka. Men bakom alla genier, som Miles, gömmer sig tiotusentals mödosamma arbetstimmar.

Páll Sólnes föddes på norra Island under förra seklets femtiotal. Vi kommer båda från samma trakt och har känt varandra sedan tonåren. Blickar man direkt österut från fönstret i tornkammaren i det hus där Páll Sólnes växte upp, ser man ett ståtligt berg försett med en fåra av branta klippformationer, inte högst upp, utan mitt i den vy man har när man ser mot öster. Denna blicklinje är hypnotisk och Solnes målade en gång detta panorama för mig i heta och intensiva färger. Denna blicklinje markerar även soluppgången. Redan på den tiden var Páll besatt av solen och på sin första utställning i början av sjuttiotalet, i en källarlokal under vårt gymnasium, ställde han ut en bläckteckning med titeln “Soluppgång betraktad från själva solens perspektiv”, där skuggor faller undan från blicklinjen. Din inre värld återspeglas i din yttre värld. Páll Sólnes arbetar numera i ensamhet, långt borta från sitt motiv, på slättmarkerna i södra Sverige och målar endast det han ser i sitt inre.

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The colours of the landscape and the landscape of colours BY erik rynell Doctor, senior lecturer, Lund university

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t is easy to see Páll Sólnes’ pictures as landscapes.

A landscape is not just a matter of geography, nor is it necessarily a specific place. It can also be an inner world and the traces of previous impressions. Colour has a life of its own and the ability to bring things to life, its own creative power that causes new connections to arise. The relationship between the colour and the landscape in Páll Sólnes’ works is not a depictive one. Rather, he occupies the border between the landscape and the spatial possibilities that arise out of the colours’ own dynamics. We can also see his paint-

ings as compositions in colour, interspersed with associations with nature and the landscape. We sense the presence of skies, water, hills, fields and vegetation, but the pictures never cross the line to actually depicting anything specific.

Páll comes from Akureyri in northern Iceland.

The town lies on a fjord between mountains. The gaze reaches far into the distance and the gazer is surrounded by a landscape in constant transformation. At first sight, the long narrow Mount Vaðlaheiði on the other side of Eyjafjörður has quite a uniform colour scale, brown and grass green. The sky and the water in the fjord add

Landskapens färger och färgernas landskap AV ERIK RYNELL doktor, lektor, lunds universitet

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et är lätt att uppfatta Páll Sólnes’ bilder som landskap. Ett landskap har inte bara med geografi att göra, det är inte nödvändigt en viss plats utan kan också vara inre världar och spår av intryck. Färgen har ett eget liv och förmåga att väcka till liv, en egen skapande kraft som får nya sammanhang att uppstå. Färgens förhållande till landskapet hos Páll Sólnes är inte avbildande.

Snarare rör han sig vid gränsen mellan landskapet och de rumsliga möjligheter som uppstår ur färgernas egen dynamik. Man kan också se hans

målningar som kompositioner i färg med inströdda associationer till natur och landskap. Vi anar himlar, vatten, kullar, fält och vegetation, men bilderna kommer aldrig över gränsen att verkligen avbilda något bestämt.

Páll kommer från Akureyri på Islands nordland.

Staden ligger vid en vid fjord mellan bergen. Blicken når långt och man omges av ett lanskap i ständig förändring. Vid första anblicken har det långsträckta berget Vadlaheidi på andra sidan Eyafjördur en ganska enhetlig färgskala i brunt och gräsgrönt.

shades of blue in clear weather. Cloud shadows move over the hillsides. Towards evening, the colours grow darker and the light hollows out vertical incisions in the mountainsides. When evening light fills the fjord, the sky can be transformed into a sea of golden yellow, which then turns to red and is reflected in the water.

But the Icelandic light also has a clarity that means that any object at all, the painted wall of a house, some flowers in a garden, can light up with a sudden presence, as if the colours emerge as we are looking at them. The unpredictability of the Icelandic landscape also applies to its colours.

Himlen och vattnet i fjorden tillför nyanser av blått vid klart väder. Molnskuggor drar över sluttningarna. Mot kvällen djupnar färgerna och ljuset gröper fram vertikala skåror utmed bergssidan. När kvällsljuset fyller fjorden kan himlen förvandlas till ett gyllengult hav som övergår i rött och reflekteras i fjordens vatten. Men det isländska ljuset har också en klarhet som gör att vilket föremål som helst, en målad husvägg, några blommor i en trädgård, kan lysa upp med en plötslig närvaro som om färgerna blir till medan man ser på. Det oförutsägbara i det isländska landskapet gäller även dess färger.

Det är det storslagna och dramatiskt landskapets färger som man också kan se i det isländska måleriet. Denna intensitet kan glimta till i Páll Sólnes’ bilder. Men de himlar man tycker sig skönja skulle likaväl kunna vara de över fälten utanför Bollerup

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It is the colours of this magnificent, dramatic landscape that we can also see in Icelandic painting.

This intensity can be glimpsed in Sólnes’ pictures.

But the sky that we think we are seeing could equally well be the sky above the fields outside Bollerup in southern Skåne, where Sólnes now lives and works, above the sea off Kåseberga, or above the wetlands in the landscape around Linderödsåsen. And what are those intense fields of red, red lead and madder lake that so frequently break through the skies, clouds and water that we think we are seeing?

The main movement in the pictures is inwards, via the layers of paint that are joined together in fragments. Sometimes, the underlying canvas comes into the daylight through the colour fields.

The flowing streaks that appear make sideways movements only rarely, but they add more life to the surfaces and reinforce the motion inwards.

This is also accentuated by the format, which is

not infrequently square or has relatively equal proportions of length and height. But even in the exceptions it is more usually the movement inwards than the horizontal motion that is accentuated.

Páll tells me how, during his time as a student in Copenhagen, he took a course in drawing at the Glyptotek. This was traditional training in charcoal drawing from models. Páll, who had always drawn and found it easy, realized that this was something quite different. The drawings were judged according to their acuity of observation and for their success in getting this onto paper. He practised this ancient academic form of art education to see and to notice things that easily elude the fleeting gaze or swift mental associations. It forced his hand out of its practised dexterity and into laboriously beginning to discover things anew. Sólnes seems to have transferred this exactness of observation from the shape of the object to the colours and the highlights. The landscape is

rendered by someone who has taken the laborious route to learning about it.

In Sólnes’ pictures we also see the influence of other nature painters. One of them is the almost inevitable Johannes Kjarval, the great interpreter of the magical power of the Icelandic landscape.

Kjarval’s way of working with colour can lead our thoughts to abstract expressionism. Sólnes also mentions one of the exponents of this movement, Joan Mitchell, among the artists who have inspired him, and also two who partly work with colour in a similar way, Cy Twombly and Per Kirkeby.

Páll Sólnes’ painting is exploratory and lyrical, and it reveals without setting up a narrative. It is simultaneously in-depth observation and the energy of colour itself. It is typical of his approach that he does not give titles to his pictures. The viewer is led into their world, not by words, which inevitably also interpret and restrict, but solely by the pictures’ own elements of light, colour and space.

i södra Skåne, där Páll Sólnes nu bor och arbetar, över havet utanför Kåseberga eller över våtmarkerna i landskapet kring Linderödsåsen. Och vad är de intensiva fälten av rött, mönja och krapplack, som så ofta bryter fram bland himlarna, molnen och vattnet vi tycker oss se?

Den huvudsakliga rörelsen i bilderna går inåt via färgskikt, fragmentariskt fogade till varandra.

Ibland går den underliggande duken i dagen genom färgfälten. De flödande streck som uppträder ger sällan en rörelse i sidled utan ger mera liv åt ytorna och förstärker rörelsen inåt. Detta sker även genom formatet, som inte sällan är kvadratiskt eller har relativt lika proportioner mellan längd och höjd. Men även i undantagen är det snarare rörelsen inåt än den horisontella rörelsen som betonas.

Páll berättar för mig hur han under studietiden i Köpenhamn följde en kurs i teckning om gavs vid Glyptoteket. Det var en traditionell skolning i att teckna efter modell med kolkrita. Páll, som alltid hade tecknat och haft lätt för det fick inse att detta var något helt annat. Teckningarna bedömdes efter exaktheten i iakttagelsen och när det gällde att överföra denna till papperet. Denna urgamla akademiska form för konstundervisning övade honom att se och att uppmärksamma det som lätt undgår den flyktiga blicken eller snabba associationen.

Den tvingade handen ur dess inövade skicklighet till att mödosamt börja upptäcka på nytt. Denna iakttagelsens exakthet tycks Páll Sólnes ha överfört från föremålens form till färgernas och dagrarnas. Intrycken från landskapen är gjorda av en som gått den mödosamma vägen att lära sig se.

I Páll Solnes bilder ser man också påverkan från andra naturmålare. En av dem är nästan oundvikligen Johannes Kjarval, den store uttolkaren av det isländska landskapets magi. Kjarvals sätt att arbeta med färg kan föra tankarna till den abstrakta expressionismen. Bland konstnärer som inspirerat Páll Sólnes nämner han även en av dessa, Joan Mitchell och två som delvis arbetar med färgen på ett likartat sätt, Cy Twombly och Per Kirkeby.

Páll Sólness måleri är undersökande och lyriskt och upptäcker utan att berätta. Det är på en gång den fördjupade iakttagelsen och färgens egen energi. Typiskt nog ger han inte sina bilder namn.

Betraktaren leds in i deras värld, inte genom ordet, som oundvikligen också tolkar och avgränsar, utan enbart genom bildernas egna element av ljus, färg och rymd.

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t the dawn of ages there was nothing, was neither sand nor sea nor cool waves earth was found nowhere nor the heavens above, only the great void and nowhere grass

The Prophecy, from the Edda (Völuspá, Eddukvæði)

The sun shed from the south, the moon’s companion, with it’s right hand over the rim of the sky.

The sun did not know where to seek repose, the stars did not know where they could rest, the moon did not know what might it had.

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01 UNTITLED (Earth Was Found Nowhere I). Oil on canvas 125 x 145 cm

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02 UNTITLED (Earth Was Found Nowhere II). Oil on canvas 170 x 160 cm

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03 UNTITLED (Earth Was Found Nowhere III). Oil on canvas 125 x 135 cm

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04 UNTITLED (Earth Was Found Nowhere IV). Oil on canvas 140 x 170 cm

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05 路 06 Oil on canvas 80 x 80 cm

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07 Oil on canvas 110 x 150 cm

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08 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 80 x 120 cm

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09 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 125 x 145 cm

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10 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 50 x 60 cm

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11 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 140 x 170 cm

EIT FJELL I DAGEN ditt mørker festa seg vart fast vart til ein vilje som gjorde og gjorde

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og stelte i stand ei ny verd der ingen fuglar kunne flyga på himmelen ikkje i flokk ikkje to i lag ikkje ein åleine for ingen himmel fans til ikkje fuglar ikkje eingong steinar berre den mørke viljen veldig som eit fjell i dagen

Jon Fosse

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12 Oil, pencil and cryon on paper 50 x 100 cm.

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13 Oil, pencil and cryon on paper 42 x 59 cm

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14 Oil, pencil and cryon on paper 42 x 59 cm

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15 Oil, pencil and cryon on paper 42 x 59 cm

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16 Oil, pencil and cryon on paper 42 x 59 cm

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17, 18 Oil, pencil and cryon on paper 42 x 59 cm

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19 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 190 x 220 cm.

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20 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 140 x 170 cm

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21 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 140 x 170 cm

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22 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 125 x 145 cm

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23 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 125 x 145 cm

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24 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 50 x 60 cm

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25 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 125 x 145 cm

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26 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 125 x 145 cm

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27 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 125 x 145 cm

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28 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 125 x 145 cm

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Sterile screes spreading down he drops on the fen moss from the shoulder of the trembled, glittered like mountain below the peak, as if delicate jewels. poised to stalk into the ochre n i s p o r d e h t Curious springs, bottoms of the dried pools. Their the moss by the stream, like ascent grew steeper, the higher water shot with frost, or with they moved up the slopes. And veins and vaults here and there, other mountains came into sight. or puddles icing or crystallizing Fog began to swirl arround their g n i t i a w a t h g over. Standing upri jagged tops and down their steep a prodding finger that would rocky sides. Yet parted for an sink into the pale yellow-green instant like steam, magnifying moss. Trembling in the breeze. gullies into chasms, stones Then gaping cracks or shreds in into cliffs. Trolls? Waiting for d e n w o r c s the moss, which wa something. That would be, had by crowberry; and islets of hair perhaps become. Wind whistling, grass spread around.

Ochre bowles of dried-up pools; the roaring of peaks, rumbling behind the mountains. courses of streams with the flora . e r a of their beds laid b Thor Vilhjรกlmsson, Grรกmosinn glรณir (Justice Undone)

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ropar í dýjamosa titra, glitra einsog smágerð djásn.

Undarleg vatnsaugu droparnir í mosa við læk, líktog frostsprengt vatn, eða með æðum og hólfum hér eða þar, annars pollar sem glerhallar eða kristallar.

Stóðu uppi og biðu þess að í væri potað fingri sem sykki í fölgulgrænan mosann.

Titra við andvara. Svo gapa raufir eða slitrur í mosanum, sem er kringdur krækiberjalyngi; og víða hólmarnir af snarrótarpunti.

Gulbrúnir bollar eftir þornaðar tjarnir; rásir lækja með beruðum botngróðri.

Gróðursnauðar skriður teygðu sig úr fjallsöxlinni flátt undan tindinum, eins og ætluðu að seilast ofan í rauðbrúna botna tjarna sem voru þornaðar upp.

Förin varð brattsæknari eftir því sem ofar dró í brekkurnar. Og önnur fjöll blöstu við. En þoka tók að streyma um háeggjar þeirra, og niður grýttar og brattar hlíðarnar efra. Grisjaði þó ennþá í gegn sem eimur væri, magnaði svo gil gerður gljúfur, steinar björg.

Tröll? Að bíða einhver. Sem yrði, var kannski orðið. Vindur þýtur, gnýr tinda, gnauðar bak fjöllum.

Thor Vilhjálmsson, Grámosinn glóir

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29 Oil, pencil and cryon on paper 70 x 100 cm

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30 Oil, pencil and cryon on paper 70 x 100 cm

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31 Oil, pencil and cryon on paper 70 x 100 cm

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32 Oil, pencil and cryon on paper 70 x 100 cm

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33 Oil, pencil and cryon on paper 63 x 82 cm

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34 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 80 x 120 cm

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35 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 80 x 120 cm

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36 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 80 x 100 cm

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37 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 80 x 100 cm

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38 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 80 x 100 cm

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39 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 80 x 100 cm

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40 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 70 x 90 cm

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41 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 80 x 100 cm

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42 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 70 x 90 cm

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43 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 70 x 90 cm

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44 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 60 x 70 cm

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45 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 110 x 150 cm

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For all its charms, the island is uninhabited, and the faint footprints scattered on its beaches turn without exception to the sea.

Wisława Szymborska.

(From Utopia).

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46 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 60 x 70 cm

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47 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 110 x 150 cm

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48 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 80 x 100 cm

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49 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 80 x 100 cm.

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50 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 90 x 120 cm

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51 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 170 x 140 cm

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52 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 170 x 140 cm

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53 UNTITLED. Oil on canvas 145 x 125 cm

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54 so what? Oil on canvas 170 x 140 cm

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55 wallander. Oil on canvas 170 x 140 cm

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I

n the autumn of 1936, a small fishing boat called Brúni left the harbour of Siglufjörður, a fishing hub in northern Iceland, heading north.

All of a sudden, a terrible storm struck the boat, breaking its mast and damaging the rudder. As the crew were desperately trying to fight a massive leak and force their way home against the thundering bursts of wind, another fishing boat came to their rescue. It managed to shoot a line over to Bruni, fasten it, and then started towing the boat back towards the mainland.

One of the fishermen on the rescuing boat had a camera and managed to take some photographs of Bruni battling the stormy waters. These pictures are among the earliest known shots of an Icelandic fishing boat in distress.

But suddenly a giant ship emerged on the starboard side, approaching at high speed and heading towards the gap between the two fishing boats. The captains of the two small boats immediately realised that the officers on the bridge of the large Danish passenger vessel, Queen Alexandria, had no idea that the second boat was being towed.

But there was nothing they could do about it – within minutes, there was a collision; Bruni was struck with a massive force and sank in an instant.

The men on the rescuing fishing boat had observed the collision in sheer horror and sped to the rescue. They were able to haul three members of the Bruni crew onboard, but the rest of the men fell into the ocean and vanished. One of them was my grandfather.

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56 BRÚNI II. Oil on canvas 140 x 170 cm

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57 BRÚNI II. Oil on canvas 140 x 170 cm

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58 Oil, pencil and cryon on paper. 70 x 100 cm

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– Just as, when we listen properly to a piece of music we have in our ears the mutual connection of each new note with

souls as a musical score, we resolve the chaos of the entangled sounds and transform them into a polyphony of different parts.

experienced and made our own in life. If we understand ourselves, we read our own

more and more extensive provinces of the spirit from its clutch.

Arnold Hauser

all those that have allready sounded, so we always posess in our deepest and most vital experiences everything that we have ever

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All art is a game with and a fight against chaos; it is always advancing more and more dangerously towards chaos and rescuing

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Páll Sólnes Born in Akureyri, Iceland 1953.

Training The Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Design 1978–82 Studies of classic drawing at New Carlsberg Glyptotek 1974–76 Studies of Litterature at The University of Copenhagen 1974–78 Exhibitions Galleri Sandberg, Copenhagen, Denmark 1980 Galleri for nutidskunst, Copenhagen, Denmark 1982 Icelandic House of Culture, Copenhagen, Denmark 1986 Café Wilder, Copenhagen, Denmark 1987 Slunkaríki, Ísafjördur, Iceland 1990 Ketilhus, Akureyri, Iceland 1995 Bakkehuset, Humlebæk, Denmark 1998 Ketilhus, Akureyri, Iceland 1999 Villa Bournonville, Fredensborg, Denmark 1999 Galleri Eet skridt ned, Copenhagen, Denmark 2000 Akureyri Art Museum, Iceland 2002 Christinehof Slott, Sweden 2002 House of Culture, Borgå, Finland 2003 Sundsberggård, Sunne, Sweden 2003 Sjöbo Konsthall, Sweden 2004 Banegården, Aabenraa, Denmark 2005 Raschs Pakhus, Bornholm, Denmark 2005 Galleri Max, Ystad, Sweden 2006 Galleri Syrpa. Hafnarfjordur, Iceland 2008 Stadtmuseum Bergen, Rügen, Germany 2012 Galleri Max, Ystad, Sweden 2013 Works NIB, Nordiska Investeringbanken The Danish Ministry of the Environment EFTA, The European Free Trade Association Sjöbo Municipality, Sweden

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earth was found nowhere

Copyright © Páll Sólnes, for the text Erik Rynell, english translation Mike Garner.

Guðmundur Oddur Magnússon, swedish translation María Árnadóttir.

Credits Eit fjell i dagen,

by Jon Fosse from Stein til stein, Samlaget 2013, courtesy of Jon Fosse.

English translation: The Edda: Bernard Scudder The Social Historie of Art: Stanley Godman and Arnold Hauser.

Photograph credits: Lars Jacob Jacobsson Page: 2-5, 8, 10, 12, 82, 90-96.

Photographs of paintings.

Páll Sólnes Page: 6, 16, 20, 36, 46, 48-49, 66, 76, 88 and the back of cover.

Excerpts from Grámosinn Glóir

by Thor Vilhjálmsson 1986; english translation Bernard Scudder.

The paintings were executed between 2006 and 2014.

Dimensions are in centimeters Height precedes width.

Quote from an interview with Miles Davis by Richard Cook in NME 13. July 1985.

Produced in Sweden Designed by Páll Sólnes Printed and bound in Sweden

Lines from Utopia by Wislawa Szymborska.From A Large Number 1976; english translation S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh

ISBN 978 91 637 7049-4

Quote from The Social History of Art by Arnold Hauser 1951.

2014

The account of Brúni

by Jón Óskar Sólnes and Brian FitzGibbon.

earth was found nowhere

Paintings BY Páll Sólnes

“The core in Sólnes paintings is the light, often bursting into flames from a point inbetween the sky and earth materials. He observes landscape intensely, and his acute visual observations of form, space and color in nature are part of his visual memories he draws upon while painting. What one color does to another and what they do to each other in terms of space and interaction.”