Måsatjern / The Bog Pond
While I was painting this picture in a rather remote part of Nesodden, I got a visit. Leader of the pack was an old friend, a lawyer who was also a longtime friend of China. He was the one who took the photo underneath, and later on he bought the painting. With him were the cultural director of the municipality, and three delegates from China, one of whom was rumored to have sat in Mao's lap as a child. I was reminded of the slogan on the package of the cigarette brand I smoked at the time: "Wherever particular people congregate."
Mens jeg malte dette bildet på Tomåsan, en ganske avsidesliggende del av Nesodden, fikk jeg besøk. Leder av flokken var en gammel venn, en advokat som også lenge hadde vært en venn av Kina. Det var han som tok bildet under, og senere kjøpte han maleriet. Med seg hadde han kultursjefen i kommunen, og tre delegater fra Kina, hvorav den ene ryktes å ha sittet på Maos fang som barn. Jeg ble minnet om slagordet på pakken til sigarettmerket jeg røykte på den tiden: «Hvorenn spesielle mennesker samles».Horses at Granerud Farm / Hestene på Granerud
It’s not always easy to find the right point of view for a painting. Especially when one discovers the motif from the car. Like this one, where I had to borrow a pallet from the farm, place it over the ditch by the road, and stand there painting while the passing cars nearly tore my jacket off.
Det er ikke alltid lett å finne den rette standplassen for et maleri. Spesielt når man oppdager motivet fra bilen. Som dette, der jeg måtte låne en pall på gården, legge den over grøfta ved veien, og stå der og male mens de forbipasserende bilene nesten rev jakken av meg.
Stolmabrua / Stolmen Bridge
While painting in Austevoll at the West Coast of Norway, I got fascinated by this construction. At the time it was the bridge with the longest span in the world, built in the “straight ahead”- method, 202 meters between the pillars if I remember correctly. The method implies that you fill up the hollow land-based part of the bridge with more and more ballast as you build out over the water. Goes to prove that I’m not I’m not only obsessed with nostalgia, doesn’t it?
9/11
I was standing in a meadow at Sulheim Farm in Bøverdalen alongside my good friend Kjell E Midthun , in the rural heart of Norway, painting a few of the buildings on this beatiful farm with roots back to the viking age. Around us cows and sheep were grazing, bells around their necks ringing. The farmer’s triplet girls in their light summer dresses, playing and laughing amongst us and the live stock, made the idyll complete. Then Kjell’s cellphone rang, and the world changed. It was September 11th 2001.
Some of Kjell’s pictures: https://www.google.com/search?q=kjell+midthun&sxsrf=AOaemvK6Ec151DD-8-dwv_NTMz_LiYegWg:1642107776787&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiu496V0K_1AhU5gv0HHRR6CvAQ_AUoAXoECAIQAw&biw=1527&bih=834&dpr=1.1
Winter in Nesodden
Photographed a long time ago by Trond Folchersahm. As far as I remember he used the picture in the local newspaper Akershus Amtstidende. I still use the same “kindergarten suit”. It has served me well.
I have found three paintings from this place. The first one, above, is dated 1998 and belongs to a local plumber who has been a good friend and helper.
This second one is from 2001 or 2002. The third one, below, is from 2003, and seems to be the one I’m working at on the photo. This painting hangs in a local nursing home for the elderly, which feels good. If some of the residents gets memories brought up from their own cross country skiing, maybe even from their childhood, the painting has done a good job. And the same for the painter.
Olabue / Ola’s shack
A small grant brought me to Austevoll, a group of islands on the west coast of Norway. There I found this beatiful little shed, built long time ago, probably for fishing gear and equipment to the boat.
While standing there painting a little old man approached me, asking the second most common question in the business: “How much could this painting cost?” I mentioned a small sum, and he looked like if I’d hit him, uttering sounds of dismay.
Then he went on with the conversation: “Its me who owns that fish farm out there!”
Fun fact: At this time Austevoll, as a result of the fishing and seafood industry, had the highest concentration of millionaires in Norway.
Arstadfossen / The Waterfall
I am still digging up photographs of older paintings, formatting them and posting them on this web-page. Many years ago a small grant brought me to Beiarn in Nordland, far north in Norway. This is one of the many places in Norway you don’t go through, the road stops there. As most such places the population was sparse and there wasn’t much going on, but the scenery was beautiful. My stay there and the people I met are good memories.
Failure or success
Dette lille grantreet vokser rett under tregrensa på Beitostølen. En personlighet, kjente jeg da jeg sto der i dypsnøen og malte det. Kanskje er det litt skuffet over at det ikke ble juletre, lite, rart og vindskeivt som det er. Til gjengjeld får det vokse til det blir stort, rart og vindskeivt. Kanskje kommer en dag en gammel, rar og vindskeiv maler tilbake og maler det.
Treet og jeg ønsker jeg dere alle en god jul.
This small spruce grows just below the tree line at Beitostoelen in the midst of Norway. A personality, I felt when I stood there in the deep snow, painting it. Maybe it's a little disappointed that, beeing small, strange and crooked, it didn’t become a Christmas tree. In return, it will grow until it becomes large, strange and crooked. Maybe one day an old, strange and crooked painter will come back and paint it.
The tree and I wish you all a Merry Christmas.
These two paintings have found a new home
Gamle Øverland Bro / Old Oeverland Bridge - oil on canvas - 52x65 cm
Vannbøffelfjøset / The Water Buffalo Shed - oil on canvas - 60x48 cm
The Blue Wall
Immediately as I started living part of my life in Genève, I fell in love with the blue wall of the Massif du Jura. The air in the valley is nearly always misty, and a haze hangs in front of the mountains, erasing detail and giving them a large variety of blue colours. Occationally a denser cloud floats by, or the beams from the sun plays “fingers of God”.
Here is one out of two sunset paintings done off Route de Cessy, not far from the Cern Point 5.
Sunset over the Jura - oil on canvas - 70x85 cm.
Torangsvågen - Austevoll
From one of the many local grants I’ve had, in Austevoll, a small group of islands out in the North Sea a little south-west of Bergen. I found these rusty barrels and old war-ships strangely beautiful. Needless to say I wouldn’t want to have neither in my own backyard. “Barrels and warships” - oil on canvas - 40x35 cm.
More from the archives
Even though it's many years ago, I still can remember the screaming of family members searching the freezer for icecream but finding my model instead.
"Dead thrush II", oil on canvas 30x38 cm
"Dead thrush I", oil on canvas 20x30 cm
"Dead thrush III", oil on canvas 41x30 cm
Beautiful Moëns
Back in the beautiful culture landscape of Moëns, trying to capture the colours of autumn.
Older paintings - favourite spots
I am still digging up photos of older paintings. It’s remarkable how certain places have been visited and painted again and again. One of those spots is the place called Bånn (“Bottom”) in Bunnefjorden (the small end of the Oslo Fjord). This is a place one normally just pass by in a car, but it has always attracted me. Very quiet (except for the passing cars), a lot of wildlife, nothing much happening except the boat restoration projects exchange places once in a year or so.
Here are two paintings painted about 20 years ago.
Krykkjene på veggen / The Kittywakes on the wall
From time to time I have recieved local grants consisting of a small sum of money, free lodging and a mandatory exhibition after the stay. One of these grants took me to Namsos in Mid-Norway. One great benefit here was the free use of public tranport. After a while I took the ferry out to Sør-Gjæslingan (meaning the Southern Goslings, from the distance they look like a flock of goslings). This incredibly beautiful environment had been, a hundred years ago, the largest fishing village south of the more famous ones in Lofoten. Here the Black-legged Kittywakes ruled the territory. Whereever it was possible to nest on these practical artificial cliffs that the humans had been kind enough to put up, they nested. Their shit etched through the metal roofs, making maintenance hard. I managed to make some sketches of the birds, and painted this picture. It’s actually one of the few watercolours I’ve completed, 43x31 cm.
When my hair still had colour
Digging deep in the archives, finding paintings from way back. Here is a self portrait from 1995, oil on canvas, 30x30 cm. I still had my parents, had a body that easily got out of bed in the morning, and my hair still had colour. Life is strange.
Early spring in Maridalen
Maridalen is, though being very rural, a part of the town of Oslo. The lake there has been the main source for drinking water for Oslo during the last century and more. This painting took three years to finish, because of the extremely fast changes of nature this time of year. There is still ice on the water and remains of snow in the plow furrows, the white anemones have already started to bloom, but the trees bear only a promise of what’s to come.
Sunset at Hankoe
Here, at my dear, dear friend Harriet’s summer home, I painted her own, private, view of the sunset. Right outside her kitchen terrace, the preferred place from which one shall enjoy the sunset, preferrably, if not working (i.e painting), with a glass of Italian red in one’s hand.
Beeing the highest location on the island, the house was occupied by German troops during World War II. They built trenches and a lookout tower, and had shooting competitions at the flag pole. Fortunately the house survived. Still you can get stuck in German barbed wire in the surroundings.
It’s a comforting thought that the troops could see the sun go down for the Third Reich from here.
Autumn fields
Another pastel finished, a year after it was started. This is a field in Pregny-Chambésy, not far from where I live in Le Grand-Saconnex. I think this was a resting period for the soil, don’t even know if they cut it in the end. The growth seemed wild - grass, different weeds and some rape seed, probably surviving seeds from an earlier crop. Now, standing in the same place, you cannot see neither the trees nor the Juras, it’s all behind 3 meters tall corn plants.
Photographer (and dog owner): Marc Dishy