carbonarts™: Bertil Hansson
With a remarkable power of observation, the Swedish artist Bertil Hansson focuses on insignificant details yet somehow manages to lift them out of their original context and charge them with a certain timeless magic. Whether the technique being employed is painting, graphic art or photography (his latest passion) there’s an intensity to the way he absorbs briefly glimpsed moments and transforms them into powerful abstracts.
lifeiscarbon® love the way Hansson captures the distinctive light that’s present in both Scandinavia and the South of France. Despite the darkness of many of his art works, the limited colors used seem radiate light. The fleeting nature of time in the small details that he uses as his source of inspiration (ie ice on a window, shadows on a wall etc) is somehow transformed into timelessness within his finished abstracts. Time seems to hang heavily within the highly charged emotional memories that are created.
Take a look here at a selection works by Bertil Hansson in the latest of our carbonarts™ galleries and continue reading for a brief profile of the artist.
Bertil Hansson was born in 1950 in Lysekil on the Swedish West Coast but his artistic career took off when he moved to the south of France just over seven years ago and settled in the village of Goult. Having liberated himself from the constraints of working in one particular medium, his productivity has grown impressively and his work is now much demanded by Scandinavian galleries and is exhibited widely.
Red Light I
Having started by working mainly with watercolours and tempera, Bertil Hansson added engravings to his repertoire just over a decade ago and began working with Ateljé Larsen in Helsingborg, Sweden. Since 1996 he has developed a highly productive collaboration with the master himself, Ole Larsen.
Passage V
Hansson’s most recent focus is on photography. In some ways this is a return to his original childhood passion. Back in the late fifties, Bertil took black & white photos with his mothers little box camera before buying his own camera (a Voigtländer), building a darkroom in the cellar of his parents house and beginning to experiment with different lenses, filters and processing techniques.
La Vie XVIII
Despite the variety of techniques that he employs, there’s a strong relationship between Hansson’s photographs, graphics and paintings. In each, there’s a never ending search for light, a strong spatial sense and an ever present feeling of uncertainty.
Flying Leaves
Take a look at a selection works by Bertil Hansson in the fifth in our series of carbonarts™ galleries.
There's an exhibition of Bertil Hansson's recent works Galleri Helle Knudsen in Stockholm from 15 September to 3 October 2007.
Comments