Summary in English of akvarellen No. 3/2009

LENA BOIJE (Sweden) - With the watercolour technique as a working tool By Jacqueline Stare

Nature is Lena Boije´s constant source of inspiration, in the hundreds of flower patterns she has made for fabrics, wallpapers, napkins, a dining-set of forty pieces, book-covers as well as illustrations. The watercolour technique is her constant working tool. When she wants to cast off and paint freely it is also mainly in watercolour.

Lena Boije wants to bring nature into our homes and public environments and she has made, among other things, patterns with motifs for each month. In that way one can follow the changes of the seasons.

It is remarkable that she is so anonymous, but Lena Boije has never tried to push herself forward - her produce is what has spoken. Still, she has participated in various exhibitions in many places in Sweden and abroad with design and painting.

In her way she has taken care of the Swedish and Nordic flora in a special form. Soon perhaps, at worst, some of the plants she has painted during many years may be extirpated. At the Textile Museum in Borås, Sweden, they are now busy registering her patterns and collecting samples of textiles but her watercolour originals should also be filed so that her entire pattern work is available in one place.

------------------------------------------------------------------

ERIK LANGEMARK (Sweden) - the town painter By Kelly Lindblom

Many towns of our country have been painted by artists. Erik Langemark
(1915-1997) depicts his beloved South-East corner of Sweden and the world, the landscape and the town.

In his self-assumed social historic task of giving his home town of Karlskrona shape in the town painting, he opens the memory doors of the onlooker, gives us an inkling of the story, the lives having taken place in these environments, in these houses.

These are genuine artistic pictures by not only an artist, beloved by the people, but also by a master of national rank. In a unique way, he combines a wide knowledge of art, architecture and history with a deep feeling of the lives of ordinary people and also of the lives of the parlours. This expressed through the eye and the hand of the artist. The propelling force, which led him in the indefatigable work to reveal common values in this part of the world, is encased in each picture.

------------------------------------------------------------------

MONICA MÅNSSON (Sweden)
By Jacqueline Stare

It is exactly 30 years ago that Monica Månsson, then 23 years old, started to teach watercolour painting. At that time she had also painted in earnest for five years.

She really loves teaching. She, like so many others, speaks about how lonely it is to be working with one´s own painting. The contact with others therefore implies to her a giving and a taking, a challenge to develop herself, to constantly find new tasks for her students and, not least, the joy of seeing how many of them develop and find new confidence in their painting.

She works slowly and uses a long time before she reaches the start of painting. When she has come that far, the painting goes very fast but, before then, pad after pad is filled with small sketches and designs. When she then starts the painting work itself, she is well prepared and knows exactly what she wants to get out from her painting. Monica Månsson often paints with more than one layer of paint, sometimes fast, sometimes reflectively and thoughtfully, all the time prepared to reconsider her original thoughts.

Monica Månsson seeks a core in her painting, she wants to remove anything that is unnecessary irrespective of what motif she uses. The character and combination of the colours, the expressiveness of the forms and the carefully calculated empty space around every form is important.

------------------------------------------------------------------

HALLDÓR ÁSGEIRSSON (Iceland) - the continuous flow of cause and effect By JBK Ransu

Last June, a seminar entitled "Watercolours for 100 years" was held at the Reykjavik Art Museum in collaboration with NAS and SIM (Association of Icelandic Artists). Three lecturers covered the mainstreams of watercolour in Iceland over the past 100 years.

During the seminar the Icelandic artist Halldór Ásgeirsson made a performance that relayed information about the medium´s expansion and escape. He projected an image with an overhead projector on a screen that showed a variety of colours in water which he created on the spot in a dialogue with chamber music.

There is an aesthetic aspect in Halldór Ásgeirsson´s work that relates to eastern principles which are found in the appreciation of the here and now.
Through such principles one can approach Halldór´s watercolour works because they show us the beauty of the process itself, where one may enjoy each moment without any expectation of how it will turn out in its final result, for it is ever changing in a continuous flow of cause and effect.

------------------------------------------------------------------

JAN ABRAMSSON (Sweden) - a song of praise unto the Blekinge archipelago By Kjell Ekström

Jan Abramsson lives on the beautiful island of Sturkö outside Karlskrona, Sweden. He is a self-taught man, a full time artist since 1987. He works in oil as well as watercolour.

Jan Abramsson works with classic naturalistic painting of the old school.
The reflections and transparency of water inspire him especially.