ABOUT

Ketil Eriksen's life story is a colorful tale of shipbuilding, multiple stays in Yemen and Greenland, and many years of employment with the Danish shipping company Maersk. It is also the story of coming ashore, wanting something different, turning energy and thought inward, and finding his path in painting.

The most important thing to say about his paintings is that they are created solely from desire. Ketil Eriksen's abstract expressionist works are characterized by an intuitive, quick, and highly spontaneous approach driven by desire, which is his hallmark. He believes that art should be driven by the desire to play, experiment, and embody a liberated, non-dogmatic energy, ideally reflecting a free spirit and free thought.

Therefore, you will not see any conceptual thinking in Ketil Eriksen's art, nor any figures derived from sketches or photographic references. When he paints, it is the colors and the suddenly emerged lines, circles, and shapes that make up the work. There is what you see; nothing behind it, no idea to understand or relate to, no narrative or difficult-to-access theory. What you see is what you get.

One could say that for this artist, painting is playing. To give it full throttle and set oneself free, to create dynamic abstract works full of movement and energy. Each work is created in a kind of "eruption" of creativity and inner drive. When this happens, he is in flow, and when the flow is exhausted, the work is simply finished!

It's about contrasts in color and line, and about intuitively capturing and reflecting moods that come from within. From this artist, you won't hear about inspiration from people, nature, music, or the like. Ketil Eriksen's inspiration comes from within himself and his own emotional life, and the painting is "done" when the desire to make it is used up. It is solely an inner drive that motivates the artist to paint, and it is this same drive that determines how the work ends up looking. When he paints, he focuses on color, where the black line almost always takes the lead role and where the painting is created quickly, lively, and action-packed – and not least very physically.

His canvas or paper lies on the floor, and he uses his whole body in the process when he composes his work with quick strokes. During creation, it is seen from above, but when the audience views it, it is seen vertically, and there is also a point in this: Namely that the immediate and very physical energy is transformed into a completely different, visual, coherent expression. As mentioned, the black line is always Ketil Eriksen's marker, but he loves to have many colors in play in the many layers his images are built from.

His compositions often juxtapose light and dark tones, and he likes to experiment with different combinations of texture and color to create intricate patterns and lines. The most important thing is that the paintings, which often simply have the title "composition," have coherence and are in balance, and that we each can connect with our inner thoughts and feelings when we view his works.

When he paints, he focuses on color, where the black line almost always takes the lead role and where the painting is created quickly, lively, and action-packed – and not least very physically. His canvas or paper lies on the floor, and he uses his whole body in the process when he composes his work with quick strokes. During creation, it is seen from above, but when the audience views it, it is seen vertically, and there is also a point in this: Namely that the immediate and very physical energy is transformed into a completely different, visual, coherent expression.

As mentioned, the black line is always Ketil Eriksen's marker, but he loves to have many colors in play in the many layers his images are built from. His compositions often juxtapose light and dark tones, and he likes to experiment with different combinations of texture and color to create intricate patterns and lines.

The most important thing is that the paintings, which often simply have the title "composition," have coherence and are in balance, and that we each can connect with our inner thoughts and feelings when we view his works.

Ketil Eriksen's art is very personal, while also opening up to the viewer's emotions and interpretations in an abstract universe without recognizable figures. And his abstract compositions have the advantage that you can keep looking at them and rest your gaze in rhythm and color, without disturbing narrative or figurative elements.

Ketil Eriksen primarily works with mixed media, oil and acrylic paint, as well as charcoal on canvas and paper. Regardless of the medium, his images are recognizable and belong to a long tradition of minimalist, abstract expressionism, where artists like Jackson Pollock and Cy Twombly also reside. For Ketil Eriksen, it is especially important that the simplicity in the composition is preserved; no more is needed than what is necessary!