Sven Froekjaer-Jensen scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land that, but that was the case. The family of course got rather afraid, when I was missing, and everyone was sent out to look for me. When my elderly cousin found me and wanted to bring me back I got a bit upset because she disturbed my important search and thoughts. Today it is 75 years ago, but I can still remember the joy of seeing the Remember Phlebas who once was young and handsome like you
scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition An early morning in the spring of 1960. Nekseloe in Odsherred
Sven Froekjaer-Jensen scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land In the very early spring a 17-year-old girl and I rose at 5 o´clock in the morning and rowed the two miles to the island of Nekseloe. The sea was quite calm and very, very beautiful, and so was the girl. Today I have been married to her for 57 years. On our way home at midday a strong gale rose, the waves got very big, and the water started to pour over the sides of the boat, so we had to take an alternative route home. Since it was a bit dangerous, the girl sat in the bottom of the boat, and since she was afraid, she started singing to keep the fear and the water demons away. Luckily she is still singing to me, keeping the demons away. Row, row, row your boat Gently down the stream Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily Life is but a dream. English nursery rhyme. 19. century or before.
scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition Himlen var som hvide roser. Langt ude, en mil ude brændte en glædesild på en høj. Der fløj en tavs fugl hurtigt forbi og videre ud i den svale dæmring. Piletræet ved brønden hældede sig stille med alle de milde, hvide blade i den lyse nat. En spæd, askehvid mølsværmer flakkede i natluften. Himlen var tåget af stjernelys. The sky was like white roses. Far out, a mile out, a bonfire burned on a hill. A silent bird flew quickly past into the cool twilight. The willow at the well bowed itself quietly with all the mild white leaves in the bright night. An ashencoloured moth fluttered in the night air. The sky was dimmed by starlight. Every year at midsummer the bonfires are lit all over Denmark. It is a very old tradition and often celebrated with friends and family. My wife and I have been together with the same fine friends for many, many years at midsummer, where we eat our shared food together, drink and sing the song connected with midsummer and have a good time in the night. I have a long row of memories from midsummer bonfires and very beautiful and fragile light of the longest day of the year, when heaven is open by day and by night. The St. Hans Night when the bonfire is lit.
fields stretching in their wonderfull colours outside borders of the town. And now I am still searching in my work for what is outside the borders of the town. And never wanting to stop. The other impulse is masterly expressed in a short quote from T. S. Eliot The waste land. A poem that has been a very important for me, since I read it being 18 years old: ... for you know only a heap of broken images... This insight told me, that maybe we put our idendity in pictures and store a great deal of our memories in pictures. Of course the truth about memories is much more facetted and also linked to smell, movements and sounds and even places, but I just wanted to focus on memories shown in the disguise of pictures. I could have chosen many other expressions of memories than landscapes, but since we as humans since time beginning have been living in landscapes and since we are so dependent on this fragile globe for survival, I wanted to try to link the concept of a landscape with the feelings and memories of the past. At first it was a bit complicated, but then it turned out to be a treasure chest to work with and in the process opening a highway to reliving the past sorted as memories. Since memories of course are guided by feelings, it turned out that most of the landscapes coming out of the process, were about feelings of love, joy and happiness. And it was a very rewarding experience to walk backwards through the life, I have been given, refinding all the gifts I have recieved in my moments of existence. It turned out that working with Landscapes and Memories was a kings road to the past and to the feelings connected with the chosen moments, that found their expression in the selected landscapes. When I look at the paintings today they all are very near to my heart, and reliving the expression embedded in them is a great gift. We have been particularly impressed by the rich nuances of blue that evolve from intense tones of Walking through the night in Odsherred to such etheral ones in The days of sunny youth and madness. Vallekilde by day. It goes without saying that blue is the color of the sky: still, we appreciate such a symbolic value in the way you carefully select each nuance of it: would you tell us something about your aesthetic decisions in order to develop such chromatic syntax? How important is intuition in order to achieve such brilliant results? Sven Froekjaer-Jensen: It is mostly hard work, and the process of getting to the inner secrets of the colours is never ending. It takes a lot of time and concentration really to experience what a given colour can tell you in the painting - and a lot of fun. The differences and shades might be small but at the same time very important, which makes the work at the same time very easy and very complicated – but always rewarding. Easy because it leads to so much complexity and gives so many possibilities. Difficult because there are so many experiments to do, before you find the right expression. So yes, intuition is crucial because it makes you very sure of what is right and what is wrong Sven Froekjaer-Jensen scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land
scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition Once there was a path And a girl with chestnut hair, And you passed the summers Picking all of the berries that grew there… In the summer of 62 I was in love with a young girl, and in a beautiful summer night we decided to walk together to my mother´s summerhouse several miles away. Of course we did not want to follow the easiest path, so we went across the lowlands through the fields at last following a very tiny and overgrown path through the fields with the ears from the long and almost ripe wheat or barlow hindering our steps. The girl had her hair in two braids. Did I tell you that she was wearing a light dress with some sort of small crinoline, so very modern in those days ? It was the most typical Danish summer night and the dew had fallen rather heavily. The light was almost transparant, but the wet stalks were bad for her legs below the dress, so I carried her on my back along the trail. I still remember the feeling of one of her braids on my neck, her breathing on my back and her wonderful smell.
scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Sven Froekjaer-Jensen Land Walking through the Night in Odsherred. 1962
scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition Field at Kaarup, Odsherred. In the middle of the Summer.
Sven Froekjaer-Jensen scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land …for man, his days are like grass; As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.. Psalm 103.15. To you it might look just a normal field, but it is not. This is near the place where my mother brought me on the back of her bike when I was about 5 years old, telling me the story of some young people, whose love was impossible. Although being so young, I strongly sensed her feelings for the young people. Now about 70 years later I wonder if she was one of them. Not so long ago I visited the place with our very good friends from Bloomington, USA, but maybe I forgot to talk about the love story.
in the middle of the working process or put into other words: The intuition takes you by your hand in the working process and guides you safely to the finished piece of work. Landscapes and Memories started three years ago and is still ongoing: how does your daily life experience —in some of the same places whose image are in a certain sense extracted from your memories — fuel your creative process? Sven Froekjaer-Jensen: I consider the creative process as a gift, I suppressed too long in my life, because I had so many other duties to family and my own excpectations. Actually I tried rather hard not to be a painter and lived quite another life with history, lectues, writing books and work, scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition Map of Unknown Land Map of Unknown Lands. I
and then the dices fell out the right way and I found my way. So for me the creative process is not fuelled by anything, it just is there. All the time. The problem is sometimes just to controll it, because it is like a well of thousands of gallons of clear and beautiful water that just keep coming to the surface. Actually I think many people feel the same about memories, If you endulge yourself in them, you might have difficulties in limiting them. But for me it is no problem, I just work in projects and they all come to me as ideas, that I have to examine and follow. Many of your works are accompanied by thoughtful, sometimes even struggling, poetic verses, plus explanatory texts: how important for you to tell something that might walk the viewers through their visual scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Sven Froekjaer-Jensen Land The Word is not the Thing A Map is not the Territory
scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition The Sea and Nekseloe The sea was calm, your heart would have responded gaily,beating obedient to controlling hands, you on the shore… T. S. Eliot: The waste land. Original draft. 1922. In the first part of the summer of 1948 I stood at the sea with my parents looking at the island of Nekseloe. Although I was ordinarily dressed with belt and trousers, I ran into the water to impress my mother and father, and threw myself with all my clothes on into the clear sea. A small girl who became my friend, not my spouse, for her whole life, was standing nearby and maybe I just wanted to show off to her too. The grown ups didn’t scold me, they just laughed very friendly and took me to the summerhouse for dry clothes. In my eyes the water was just as mysterious a blue as on the painting. And the day so beautiful having both a father and a mother.
Sven Froekjaer-Jensen scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land En lille nisse rejste med ekstrapost fra land til land, hans agt det var at hilse på verdens største mand. A little nisse traveled with extra mail from place to place, His aim it was to greet The biggest man in the world Children´s song. En lille nisse rejste J C. Gerson, 1845 My grandparents lived 200 km away in Jutland, a great distance in those days. I spent a lot of my childhood over there with their big and fine family. One day in the summer of 47, I think it was, I sneaked out of their house alone, because I was overtaken by a very strong desire to see what was outside the little town. Although I was only 3 or 4 years old I was very determined to explore this mysterious and maybe wonderful area. So off I went about a kilometre to the edge of town, where the fields started. In the painting I have tried to show the feeling of wonder and excitement over this big expedition for such a small kid. Outside the edge of town. I.
scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition Det er hvidt herude, kyndelmisse slår sin knude overmåde hvas og hård, hvidt forneden, hvidt foroven, pudret tykt står træ i skoven som udi min abildgård. It's all white here, Kyndelmisse ties its knot strangely sharp and hard, white below, white on top, powdered thick stands wood in woods as in my garden. Steen Steensen Blicher. 1838. In wintertime the sun often sets with a abundance of blue colours. The air vibrates with the coming darkness, and the fatigue sets in. In the winter of 54, being 11 years old I had to collect free frozen carrots for my rabbits some miles from my home. The carrots were transported in my little brother´s baby carriage tied to my mother´s bicycle. Driving or rather walking through the landscapes that was dressed in blue snow, I got immensely tired. At home I was ill with a rather high fever. But the rabbits got their feed, and I never forgot the deep blue colours on the road home through the dusk of winter.
scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Sven Froekjaer-Jensen Land Gathering feed for the rabbits with a fewer.
scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition Geopark Poster Odsherred III
experience? And how open would you like your works to be understood? Sven Froekjaer-Jensen: Normally I just give the paintings titles, but in Memories and Landscapes I wanted to create a symbiosis of pictures and text. But since the text had Sven Froekjaer-Jensen scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Mother why are these men wearing those strange hats
to be the highest degree of meaningsfullness, it was logical to use quotes from poems describing something similar, that might ignite the memories of the onlooker. Understanding is in my opinion not something you can expect from the onlooker, because we all see the world from our own map of understanding, but when the onlooker and you can meet walking together over the bridge that is the painting, it is a very rewarding situation. Your artistic production challenges the logic of ordinary perception, urging the viewers to a participative effort, and we definitely love the way Outside the edge scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition
Tree of Life
There is no end to this story No final tragedy or glory Love came here and never left Now that my heart is open It can't be closed or broken Love came here and never left Outside our town are beautiful fields with barrows more than 2500 years old. In a special place near the small river two of them are covered with trees today. When my kids were small we often walked around outside town looking for animals, utensils from the stone age and other things that might enthuse the kids. Sometimes you could the deer coming out from their shelter. Here it is a sunny day, and I can almost hear the voices of my children talking exitedly about the things we had seen and found. I really cherish all those moments now frozen in time and memory. scape Special Edition CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land
Walking in the Fields with our Children scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Sven Froekjaer-Jensen Land
The Days of sunny Youth and Madness. Vallekilde by Day Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Special Edition
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means, Time held me green and dying Though I sang in my chains like the sea… A lot of parties were thrown at ours friend´s house just outside the tiny village of Vallekilde. Drinking, singing, shouting and discussing with the enthusiasm and folly of the rather young. The painting is the memory of the view from a tree just outside the house called Solbakken, meaning the hill of the sun. I climbed it one day at a party in 1968 or 1969. Maybe it was the moonshine or maybe it was the very special light over the lowlands with the ripe fields, that made such a great impression on me. It is almost 50 years ago, but I can still feel the branch under me and hear the loud voices below me. Tree of Life Sven Froekjaer-Jensen scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land
Memory as a Treasure at the root of the Tree Take care of all of your memories said my friend Mick, for you cannot relive them…
Tree of Life
of town. I. features such stunning combination between reminders to realistic elements, belonging to material world, and such unique abstract sensitiveness, that reminds to the realm of fantasy. Scottish artist Peter Doig once remarked that even the most realistic work of arts are derived more from within the head than from what's out there in front of us, how do you consider the relationship between reality and imagination, playing within your artistic production? Sven Froekjaer-Jensen: Both concepts may meet in the piece of art. Maybe the imagination is fuelled by the reality, but I see it more as a marriage of both concepts working together in a process, that is ongoing with feedbacks and striving to the goal, a goal that I sometimes think is fixed but unknown to me before the process starts, but it is very difficult to separate reality and imagination living as they are at the same time in our awareness. Maybe reality and imagination just are. Period. Mirroring and fertilizing each other. Your Landscapes and Memories series features such stimulating combination between essential sense of geometry and emotional abstract feeling: how do you consider the tension between geometric patterns and abstraction in your artistic practice? Sven Froekjaer-Jensen: Both are subject to the goals of the artistic project, and there is for me no contradiction or friction between the two concepts. They just fit together just as if you see a beautiful person skating on ice and experience the whole scene both with the traces from the skates on the ice, the sounds, the feeling of the air and the feelings in your mind. It just fits together like a puzzle. Your landscapes captures the now-ness of the space, but at the same time unveil the oneness of human experience: in this sense, we dare say that your works eschew the dichotomy between Past and Present, inviting the viewers to search for such synoptic idea of time. Do you agree with this interpretation? Sven Froekjaer-Jensen: Yes in every way. You just phrase it so clearly and wonderfully. That is what a vital part of the search in Memories and Landscapes is about. When I started the project, I hoped I could unveil the synoptic idea of time but also the experience of it. It might be a bit difficult to do, because our consciousness changes all the time, and the memories and pictures are warped in the process. But it was really one of the important goals at the beginning together with the creating of a valid piece of art. In particular, how do you consider the catogory of time playing within your artistic research around the theme of memory? Sven Froekjaer-Jensen: The category of time had to be left alone in the process, because it could not be used as a category concept. It was simply too difficult to use in the work, because it led to very many interesting philosophical questions, that took me away Sven Froekjaer-Jensen scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land
from the creative process. So I just had to leave it and focus on the way memories were created in my mind and nothing else. Doing anything else would have led me back to my old work as a historian, and that would have been a road leading nowhere. Landscapes have long been considered abstract symbols of human emotion: do you think that landscapes could be considered symbols of transience of human experience and at the same time that each human experience leaves hidden still almost eternal tracks? Sven Froekjaer-Jensen: If you by transience of human experience mean something that passes very quickly and is difficult to grasp, because we all are woken up by human voices and forget ourselves, then it will not be possible for me to use the concept of landscape in that way. It is an interesting and even rewarding way of looking at one of the chains of human existence, but since I see the landscapes fronzen in time, it is not possible for me just now to use that angle, even if I really like it for its beauty and implications. If each human experience leaves hidden and still almost eternal tracks is not inside my possiblities of understanding. We all shape the landscape, and we all leave our tracks, but if time is considered a process combining the many, many fluctuations, and if the entropi of the universe is working as said, it is difficult to se almost eternal tracks of anything. But we all have a obligation to leave the planet in as good a shape as possible and in that way putting our tracks into the future. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts again, Sven. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future? Sven Froekjaer-Jensen: As an artist I am just standing on a road, my feet start walking and I have to follow searching for the best and most adequate expression in my work. I have to use all my tecnical skills, intuition, understanding and many other factors, some of them unknown to me to be able to reach my artistic goals. My most recent project is called The Door into Summer and is a search for the concept of summer and joy combined with the quest for the way into this mental condition symbolized with different doors. In the future I just hope to be given enough time to find what is outside – and inside - the borders of our human town, and to find the road that leads to the happy marriage of art and life. Describing the very old og yet new structures of human life and art. Life is old, but always new. Like art. scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator [email protected]
Portrait of my Love shown at the Castle of Frederiksborg, the Museum of National History in Denmark at the exhibition Portrait Now
Hello Henriette and welcome to LandEscape. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production and we would like to invite our readers to visit https://henriettebusch.com in order to get a wide idea about your artistic production, and we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training: you hold a BA of Fine Art that you received from the University of Hertfordshire and you are currently nurturing your education in Life Drawing classes at The St. Albans Art Society: how do these formative years influence your evolution as an artist? Henriette Busch: I was born in Berlin, Germany I have been interested in and surrounded by art all my life. My father, Eddy Smith, was a German artist (with a Scottish father, hence the name Smith) who was well-known in Berlin for his powerful, subversive copper-etchings and portraits of Berlin society figures in pre-and post-war Germany. And, although his paintings, etchings and drawings were always there for me to see, and as a child I was always drawing, I did not really get serious about art until much later. This is because I was not in a position to get serious about my art until the advanced age of forty-five. I had travelled and lived in six different countries on four different continents (Europe, West Africa, South America, and North America) before settling in England nearly 40 years ago. (After the early death of my father, my mother remarried and we moved to Liberia, West Africa. It was there that I later met my Henriette Busch is a contemporary painter and digital artist living and working in St Albans. Between 2000-2003 she attended the BA Honours Fine Art Degree course at the University of Hertfordshire. Henriette has been making art for over 20 years, and has exhibited widely in the UK since 2003. Her vibrant and expressive work is in many private collections in England, The Netherlands, Germany, USA and Dubai. An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator [email protected] Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW LandEscape meets Henriette Busch In my work I attempt to capture the essence of things - places and houses lived in long ago whose vivid colours and scents, whose windows and doorways have lingered at the edge of my memory. I explore the relationship between the reality of the place or object and the imagined reality, in order to transform often quite ordinary images so that they become exotic and mysterious. I want to create an illusion, a feeling of heightened awareness in my images which in their final version often bear no resemblance to the original but have become enhanced and imbued with a dreamlike quality. Our memories too work like that - we often see past events and places in our minds eye in an enhanced way, and give them qualities they never really had.
Lockdown Blues, Mixed media on card, 21 x 15cm.
future husband, and it was due to his work that we lived in North and South America) As a young mother and later as a working mother, I attended a variety of evening and extramural courses and summer courses to explore life drawing, sculpture, ceramics, printmaking and textile design. I always knew that I wanted more than this but it wasn’t until 1999 that I finally took the plunge and quit my well-paying, highpressured fulltime job as a software sales exec for an American company to enroll in a one year, fulltime foundation course in Art and Design at the University of Hertfordshire. This exciting and exhilarating course opened so many doors and possibilities for me that I hadn't even known existed that I decided to embark upon the BA Hons. Fine Arts Degree course-a step I had previously not seriously considered. I found that although this degree course was brilliant in many ways, it didn’t really “teach” fundamental principles in the traditional way, so although the course very much enriched me and Henriette Busch scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Early spring walk Pastels on paper, 29 x 21cm. Sun shining through the clouds mixed media on paper, 20 x 15cm.
actually changed my life, it left me wanting in certain skills which I had to acquire myself…and it’s a continuing process of course. Since then (2003) I have been exhibiting widely throughout the UK in group shows and art fairs and I had several solo exhibitions. In January 2020 I also had an exhibition of 7 paintings in a new private gallery in Berlin. Even though I went back to work full-time after my degree course, (and worked until the end of 2018) I kept painting on weekends and continued taking part in exhibitions and small group shows. I also continued taking courses where possible – for instance, in 2014 a 5 day course in “Form and Abstraction” in the St. Ives School of Painting, and joining art societies such as the once famous (now sadly closed) National Society of Painters, Sculptors and Printmakers. During the first lockdown I was particularly creative, taking part in all sorts of online courses and workshops, such as 5 day workshop with the American artist Nicholas Wilton, and joining an inspiring Life Drawing Zoom scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition Lonely moonlit walk in lockdown Oil on paper, 29 x 21cm. Strange flower II mixed media on wood panel, 30 x 65cm.
course with an amazing model – a course which I continue to dip into whenever I have time. Just recently, I completed a 5 day course in Cornwall called “Freedom in Painting” led by the abstract artist Ashley Hanson. I found this course very useful, inspiring and exciting and shall continue to apply some of the principles learnt on this course in my new paintings. One of my recent Henriette Busch scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land The beach at Bude, acrylics on canvas board, 60 x 60cm, framed.
paintings completed there was The beach at Bude. The body of works that we have selected for this special edition of LandEscape —and that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article — has at once captured our attention for the way it scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition Landlines from above, mixed media on wood panel, 50 x 50cm
Henriette Busch scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land unveils the connections between ordinary life experience and the dreamlike dimension, highlighting at the same time the uniqueness of the viewers' response to the work of art. When walking our readers through the genesis of your works, would you tell us something about your usual setup and process? Henriette Busch: I like the way you have commented on my work by saying that “it unveils the connections between ordinary life experience and the dreamlike dimension…” – exactly that aspect is what I want to achieve in my work, sometimes not even consciously as it often happens without actually planning it. It is because in my work, I attempt to capture the essence of things - places and houses lived in long ago whose vivid colours and smells, whose windows and doorways have lingered at the edge of my memory. Or a spring walk in the beautiful Hertfordshire countryside, on a sunny day when everything is bursting through the brown earth, wanting to be. I take many photos on these walks, Nad al Sheba Park II Watercolours on paper, 60 x 40cm The road to the deep dark lake Oil on canvas, 15 x 10cm.
St Paul River in the rain, Acrylics on paper, 50 x 70cm
scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition in order to later explore the relationship between the reality of the place or object and the imagined reality, so that I can transform often quite ordinary images until they become exotic and mysterious. In practice, my process – the process of actually creating an image or a painting is very mundane! I am not such an organised person to have everything carefully set up beforehand. There are several scenarios. If I know what I want to paint, I often work from a reference photo or a sketch I have made, and then I decide what type of paint I want to use – pastels and charcoal, inks or watercolours, acrylics or oils. I have also recently started to experiment with acrylic pouring techniques as this complements how I like to often work – which is wet on wet. Remembered Sunset, Mixed media on canvas, 30 x 80cm.
And then I decide whether I want to work on paper, canvas or sketchbook. This first scenario usually happens when I have an image or place in mind, either recent or longer ago, that I know I want to paint because it was so special in some way and I recall how it made me feel, and the more frequently I think about it, and imagine myself painting this, the more I know that I must do this, asap, and so as soon as I have time, I start The 2nd scenario is, when I don’t really know what I want to paint, or I’m not feeling so creative – then I force myself to go into the studio and start something. Then I just paint intuitively without a plan, doodling or playing with paint – often something good emerges from these unplanned sessions. One example would be “The fields were already ploughed”. Henriette Busch scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land
The tones of your works — be they intense and bright as in The blue house II and Into the Red, be they marked out with such thoughtful, almost meditative ambiance, as in September Walk — create delicate tension and dynamics: how does your own psychological make-up determine the nuances of tones that you decide to include in your works? In particular, what role does play intuition in the composition of your pallette? Henriette Busch: Great question. I would say that intuition plays a huge part in my work. Of course, when I plan a painting – such as Blue House II, then the palette is somewhat predecided as this painting was based on a photograph I had taken from my mother’s old house when I was visiting Liberia in 2011. The intense blue was the colour of the neighbouring house. But I always change or scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition April Walk, Acrylics on canvas, 30 x 80cm
intensify the colours when I am painting, depending on how I feel they work best. In September Walk, the colours are fairly true to how it actually was. I remember this as a melancholy painting because summer was almost over and I felt wistful. In The house with the pink bougainvillea I made the sky orange as that looked good with the rest of the painting – in reality the sky that day was a watery white. When I work in a completely abstract way, as in The Pleasure Garden, I don’t decide beforehand which palette to use - the colours I use are just my decision regarding what looks best next to this colour or another – I always ask myself “what does my painting need”. I often work this way, and don’t feel I need or want to plan my colours – or even my marks – beforehand, unless I am painting something or Henriette Busch scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land
My old houses, Collage and paint on paper, 50 x 60cm
someone from a reference photo – such as Gertie with the pink trousers or Gertie on the low wall. More recently I have started painting with a more limited palette of only using 4 colours plus black and white. And I found that I can still create vibrant paintings such as the ones in my recent exhibition LANDLINES – Dreaming of Cornwall, Aerial View and Landlines from Above and The Green Door where I used lemon yellow, ultramarine, red, paynes grey and white. (acrylics). As you have remarked once, in your work you attempt to capture the essence of things - places and houses you lived in long ago. We dare say that your works could be considered a response to direct experience mediated by the lens of memory: do you agree with this intepretation? In particular, as an artist with such rich cultural substratum — due to your years spent in Germany, Liberia, Suriname, and in North America — how does your everyday life's experience and your memories fuel your creative process? Henriette Busch: Yes your interpretation is surely right “…that my works could be considered a response to direct experience mediated by the lens of memory..” I would think that that is the case for most painters, that our response to something is always influenced by our previous experiences in life. Its hard for me to know exactly how the inspiration for my paintings works, but I am convinced that all the years spent in hot, colour-rich, exotic places have left their mark on my brain and traces of these memories scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition
Henriette Busch scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Indigo Nights, Oil on canvas board, 30 x 40cm
scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition Nad al Sheba Park Dubai, Acrylics on paper, 30 x 40cm
come through in my work and combine with the every day experience to influence whatever I am creating. The main thing is, I want to express certain emotions, evocations, and stories about places and people. Even in my very abstract work, there is a narrative. Through the marks I make, and the colours I use, I want to express the sense of a journey, and movement. I believe that this need, and sense, of movement in my abstract paintings, has to do with the many journeys I have undertaken in my life, the countries and houses I have lived in over the years and the recall of those journeys has drip-fed into my work. Whether consciously or subconsciously I want to express, through the paint and markmaking, how it was – and how it compares to now – the colours, the sights, sounds and smells of everything around me. And of course, I want these feelings to somehow resonate with the viewer too – not just with me – and if they do, then I feel that the work has succeeded. We highly appreciate the way your works address your audience to dive into the dreamlike dimension, helping them to discover its connections with ordinary life. Scottish painter Peter Doig once remarked that even the most realistic paintings are derived more from within the head than from what's out there in front of us, how do you consider the relationship between reality and imagination, playing within your artistic production? Henriette Busch: Yes, Peter Doig’s work is amazing I love so many of his paintings as they are to me mysterious and enigmatic, they tell a story but the viewer has to try and work out scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Henriette Busch Land
September Walk, Oil on canvas, 30 x 40cm, framed.