Jacob_Brostrup in english |
Part of the text "About Jacob Brostrup's Paintings" by Else-Marie Bukdahl. The whole text is published in the book Jacob Brostrup (link)
Between 2006 and 2011, Jacob Brostrup focused on developing and refining a special pictorial technique that encompasses both digital media – especially the computer and photographs – and pictorial means of expression. This technique is meant to produce a pictorial interpretation of the insight that we can never see and experience all perspectives of a part of nature or city at the same time. We can only experience one aspect. In the picture, viewers encounter different aspects of a piece of nature that they have seen and experienced, but can never see simultaneously in the real world. In the pictorial universe, they can also experience combinations of nature scenes that they will never be confronted with in the world they know.
In his own words, he describes the technique as follows: Else Marie Bukdahl
Interview publiched on Kopenhagen.dk (online art site) by Lise Kristoffersen. Interview The young artist Jacob Brostrup (b. 1973) is about to open a show entitled Another View in Gallery NB Roskilde. The exhibit consists of a new series of paintings inspired by New York and the hectic rhythms of big city life. The paintings reproduce urban scenes in stripes, which are both blurred, yet at the same time sharp. Copenhagen Magazine sat down with Jacob to discuss stripes, motifs, and the perfect brush stroke. The exhibition Another View features mainly scenes from New York. What is it that New York has, that you could use in this exhibit? I have recently been in New York and was struck by the merging of so many different cultures into one. I don’t think this is found in so many other cities. If you ride on the subway and meet five different people, there is a big chance that they come from five different parts of the world. And it is this reality that shapes my paintings, in that I feel as though each stripe reflects a certain understanding of reality. Or that they each express a different point in time, be that point historical, or just a different point in time in the course of a day. You explore mainly urban scenes in this show. Yes, scenes that posess depth. I like to stand in front of a painting and get the feeling that I’m being pulled into the picture, or a sense that I’m only seeing or feeling the colors. Since I’ve been a kid I’ve been fascinated with the ability to build up perspective in a painting. Now you’ve worked with these stripes for a couple of years. What is it with you and stripes? The long story is that I was at the Louisiana Museum north of Copenhagen in 1989 to see a Dali exhibit, and it was truly an eye opener. After the show, I began to read about Dali, and I found, among other things, that he had at one time written a paper on different painting techniques. For years I tried to find this, but never could. 12 or 13 years later I was in Los Angeles, and at one the museums I visited I was lucky enough to come across the paper Dali wrote, which I immediately bought. It covers a variety of topics, but one part, in particular, discusses how one can achieve the perfect brush stroke. And it was this story that fascinated me. Of course there are certain brush strokes in art history which stand apart. Rembrandt has an ink drawing of a young girl, and it more or less is composed of only 3 brush strokes. My paintings are an illusion of the perfect stroke. In some of my paintings there are only 5 or 6 strokes, but they are painstakingly built up and arranged with extreme care. Some times it takes a whole day to prepare a single brush stroke. You use photographs as a source for your paintings. Yes, the photographs are like a sketch. I’m much more interested in painting than in photography. Actually the photos work like a skeleton that I use to build up colors. I use these qualities that are in the motifs as a starting point for light and color. The colors I use have some sort of connection to the original picture. So when I start working on a painting, I try to push the color schemes as far away from the original as I can, thus manipulating the overall mood of the picture. I try to start each picture without a preconceived notion about how the colors and tone should be. The motif needs to be an invitation into the picture for the viewer, but also for me. One needs to be sucked into the picture. For me, painting is simply the joy of creation, and I hope this shines through in the work itself. Many of the paintings are pure explosions of color. What is your thought process concerning color schemes? I don’t use colors symbolically, but still the colors attain a certain symbolism in the end. If I use a red color, and that color runs down the canvass, it can easily begin to look like a traffic accident. In this way it is quite interesting to juggle with colors, and ultimately feelings. Because colors carry these feelings and moods… Yes, a single color shift can change the understanding of a painting. One can imagine that each color or stripe is a person’s sense of the world. We all see the world differently due to cultural differences and so on. We are sitting here at an exhibition that is more or less sold out. What happens next? All the hoopla that goes with an opening - and the fact that all the pictures are already sold – is exciting and extremely motivating. But it is long removed from the daily work in my studio. Of course I have ambitions concerning what I wish to accomplish, but we’ll have to wait and see.
JACOB BROSTRUP 1990-1994: Educated as a chef EXHIBITIONS:
ADMISSION: COMMISSIONS:
Represented by Galleri NB. Click for contact |