Andreas Eriksson
Relationship to tradition?
My relationship to the tradition of art is very eclectic. I feel free to pick and choose from all available sources. To me, all art is timeless. I find it quite difficult to divide works of art into different categories. I can feel strongly about works, which have no actual connection at all. What immediately comes to mind are the portraits of Holbein, because of their unbelievable clarity and realism, and also De Kooning’s work, especially the period of 1976–1977 which makes me feel very warm in my heart.
Possibilities of painting?
When I started at the Art Academy of Stockholm in 1993, and chose painting, it was an area devoid of interest that nobody talked about.
This general disinterest meant for me a magnificent room to manoeuvre. People have two kinds of reactions, it seems, every time it is claimed that all is done and achieved in a certain medium. Either you say that this medium has become 'meaningless', or you sense that this abandonment actually opens up all possibilities.
To me, the possibilities of painting lie precisely in this point, even today, and my interests and what I do is continuing along the same path, it is the same project now as the one I began then. Painting is the medium which, for me, provides biggest freedom and that I value the most.
What do you read?
My relationship towards literature is similar to the one I have with paintings. I like to collect texts as well as pictures. Across the scale, I use everything that I am interested in. Lately I have been reading, for example, crime stories by Henning Mankell and I have been very inspired by the writings of the Russian conceptualist Lev Rubinstein.
Artist’s morality?
I do not really know about this, but personally I see the differences in people’s works. One good example of paintings that I think are both ethical and aesthetical are the works by Olav Cristopher Jensen. In his paintings I see a deeply rooted humanity and goodness. An opposite example are the works by Gerhard Richter, whose view of humanity seems to be very lacking and impoverished. And I am not talking about narrative styles, but about the elements of painting in them, the way they are done. They just seem so nasty and unpleasant.
Personally, I am interested in the sensation and the feeling of the work, not its message. I can get the same sensation, for example, from commercial pictures as from paintings. I am not looking for them, but they just appear. This is connected to the way I use many different strategies in my work, which vary from abstraction via using texts in pictures, to figurative painting. I also have different rhythms of working. Sometimes I can do, let’s say, dozens of pictures in a day and then a single work can take five weeks. This is not a problem, on the contrary. I do not care about outer looks, but about inner substance. The whole point is my search for myself.
What is your relationship to the chosen subject?
This can be anything, depending on each work. I certainly have no common strategy - all I can say is that I am definitely not doing the same picture over and over again. I think the idea of doing and working on the same thing is something very 1980’s. For me this strategy is not credible. I constantly try to break away from the emerging patterns.
Autobiographical elements?
What is most important is that I remain honest to myself. I think that all the different things I do in my studio have the same value. Obviously, it is a completely different thing when I make an exhibition. However, I enjoy this eclectic situation.
During the years, I have grown more certain and this in itself has given me more space to work. I have more freedom now than when I started. I can take more chances, although it is often tricky how to define what is and what is not a risk. At the exhibition in Gävle, for example, I will show commissioned copies of my original works. This feels very risky and corny, but I do enjoy taking these risks.
Mika Hannula
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