"My paintings have, since I arrived in Holland eleven years ago, developed into a registration of the landscapes of my native country Sweden, both physical and psychological. The presence of the landscape and the wild nature up there, is very impact. Something very relieving, as well as frightening and intimidating. The beauty and freedom it speaks about, has an ever so under laying threatening side. In my work I try to get closer to ideas of the landscape, to reveal the fears and threats of the ostensibly calm surfaces of it’s beauty. I’m influenced by photography and moving images and the human relation to nature.
In later work I have also been interested in occult rites, myths of the pagan heritage and folklore tales of the vast and dense landscape of the north. These stories and tales have helped form a collective memory of what our dreams and fantasies are made of.
This has been crucial for me in the way I look at an image and the seductive yet sinister portrayal of a landscape I want to share. The boarder line of beauty and beast is to be found in all my collected influences and it’s something I’m definitely eager to be able to show in my work. I believe painting to be an extension of time. With metaphors, pagan stories and paraphrases from art history, my new paintings suggests not only the mystic ambivalance of dark vs light, like before, but also a clearer point towards a global environmental awerness of our surroundings. The ever struggle between good and evil, darkness and light, yin and yang continues.
But painting is not only storytelling. It is working with and executing specific ideas and emotions into layers of imagery. For some in thick twirls, brushstroke markings or color field makings, for me in thin layers of oil paint in an aquarelistique blending. Slowly I want my images to appear in a blur of shimmering lights and dark contradictive shadows, much like the boarder line of beauty and beast I mentioned above. The drive, or maybe force, that are ever so alive, is to put that next layer of paint on it’s spot, to make an abstract form blend in and to evoke something recognisable, even realistic is crucial for me. It’s an act of full concentration and I sometimes see it as a metaphor for the detective work conducted at a crime scene investigation. A slow but eager search for the right lead, with daring objectivities dig into the next option, to fill the gaps and to finally put the evidences in position for a key that might lead to a solution. Or maybe even as a magician working his rituals to gain control and strength, like an alchemist dealing with blend natural resources finally with the right touch end up in a golden result. I’m intrigued by the stories behind it all, but the essence for me is the act of painting and making it mine and for me to show it for and share with others." - Pär Strömberg