Tor Arne:
Paintings 2015–2018

Artist page

Painting # 17, 2015–2018
oil on canvas
68 x 142 cm

The light of those summer nights… I thought there must be some way to capture this feeling in a painting. And sunrise, and the moment just before sunrise, the light coming into being. This is what joins us to all this, to all existence. Nowhere can you see it so purely than at sea.’

The above quotation is from an interview with Tor Arne when he held his first exhibition at Galerie Anhava in 2004.

In that interview, he also observed:

‘It is about getting rid of something, of knowing how to reduce and discard things, rather than achieving something.’

‘Colour cannot be rationalised.’

‘The only really interesting things are what we don’t know.’

‘Painting means to turn at a corner. When you take a turn at a corner, you never know what you’ll find there. If you accept that, you can paint.’

‘A good painting can stand being watched, even from one day to another.’

‘The landscape, nature, is the sustenance of my paintings. It provides impulses and reinforces, supporting what I try to outline in my paintings.’

While physical perception, the landscape, experiences and emotion always underlie Tor Arne’s paintings, the works are not figurative. They represent only themselves. These paintings give, with visual means, the viewer a deep feeling of a connection with something greater, a shared existence that we usually do not attain. Their deepest essence consists of colour, light and their relationship with our world of experiences, our ability to experience things.

These paintings do not chatter, they exist and whisper, and therefore the viewer must calm down before them to look, feel and surrender.

Ilona Anhava

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Painting # 16, 2015–2018
oil on canvas
43 x 153 cm

Painting # 15, 2015–2018
oil on canvas
42 x 152 cm

Painting # 14, 2015–2018
oil on canvas
70 x 61 cm

Painting # 12, 2015–2018
oil pastel on paper
40 x 55 cm

Painting # 11, 2015–2018
oil pastel on paper
40 x 55 cm

Painting # 8, 2015–2018
oil pastel on paper
40 x 55 cm

Painting # 7, 2015–2018
oil pastel on paper
40 x 55 cm

Painting # 6, 2015–2018
oil pastel on paper
40 x 55 cm

Painting # 5, 2015–2018
oil on board
46,5 x 150,5 cm

Painting # 4, 2015–2018
oil on canvas
60,5 x 121 cm

Painting # 3, 2015–2018
oil on canvas
68 x 142 cm

Painting # 2, 2015–2018
oil pastel on paper
40 x 55 cm