Painting

Presentation of the artist in connection with the exhibition at the Museum of Konsthallen Bohusläns 2005: Arne Isacsson is a central figure in Nordic watercolour art. For several decades he has balanced an artistically significant deed against a pedagogical one. At the age of 88, he is still active as an artist and educator. He has had a great influence on watercolour art and its spread from the 1970s onwards and contributed to a renewed interest in the subject. As a founder of the Gerlesborg Schools in Bohuslän and Stockholm, he has for sixty years expanded the boundaries of education in art. In the watercolour, the father’s whiteness is often used as a light-bearing element. The main characteristic of Arne Isacsson’s watercolour painting is that he exploits the pigment properties. experimenting and allowing the dark pigments to be light bearing. The motif is often the bohusland landscape - with which he is deeply familiar - where mountains, seas and lights are depicted with technical brilliance. Provence and other northern landscapes are also places he returns to. He has also developed watercolour technology through his watercolour monotypies, a method that can be likened to graphics as the image is created via an imprint. Here he uses thin handmade paper that is crumpled, in which pigments and water flows are squeezed. The different nature of the colour pigments forms fine colour beams in the paper folds and an almost photographic depth action occurs. The formations, which can be likened to rock or cracking, are added by a more or less slumparted process, in which the artist then chooses or discards in the large material. The monotypies are abstract in nature and have a great expressive effect. In public embellishments from later years, Arne Isacsson has made use of watercolour monotypy, joined together in collagen technology to larger more monumental works. Arne Isacsson has also taken an interest in more contemporary expressions in recent years, as he made scenographies in collaboration with Carmen Olsson’s solo buthodance performance “Ur Mörker.” In this large and comprehensive retrospective exhibition he shows works from the 1930s onwards. It will be drawings from the period mentioned, early oil paintings, watercolours from six decades, watercolour monotypies from twenty years of laboratory work with this new technique, sketches and public art. In addition, video display will be included in the exhibition. Anita Midbjer, Umeå universitiet, has filmed Arne Isacsson for an upcoming thesis: “Arne Isacsson - artist educator folk performer.” She also makes with Kjell-Ove Grönlund a personal documentary about Arne Isacsson, of which a minor cut can be seen in the exhibition. Official website, Internet address 2010 with presentation of the artist’s awards, major exhibitions, representations, public works, previous assignments, studies, literature list mm. http://arneisacsson.gerlesborg.se / See the Bilagepärmen UM27954: Printout (five pages) from Culture: West, interview with Arne Isacsson in connection with his award to the Western Götalandsregionen’s major cultural prize of 100.000 kroner; “An outstanding watercolist, educator and peoplemaker...”