New Paintings April 2012



Jorgen Faxholm: Branches in Green Park, London
Oil on 35x55cm canvas

  I have long wanted to try something different, so here goes.
The branches in the wintery Green Park of London was inspired by a photo by my friend Adam.
While painting, my daughter Iryna said: "STOP. That's it. Can I have it as it is?"
Who can resist a compliment like that?

She was right. The Japanese impression of naked branches, overlaid on a background in Lemony/Ochre Yellow (and a little Titanium White), divided into a couple of minimalistic Rothko squares was enough.

Hmm - well, I shall try another composition, including some unique 'needle-flowers', omitted from this picture.
Let's see what it brings.
But I am happy with the colours!




Jorgen Faxholm: Reflections, Chiswick House Lake
Oil on 50x70cm canvas

 During a walk to Chiswick House Park I took a couple of photos of the ripples on the surface of the lake, just using my little Panasonic Lumix camera. Using PSP7 and changing the colours to B/W, while increasing the contrast, some rather unique swirls and patterns appeared.
The strange thing was, that you couldn't see them with the naked eye.
I turned this into a painting, as shown here.

This is definitely an avenue with which I want to experiment - next time using just B/W and perhaps one background colour (Sunshine yellow or red).

The Angler; Danish island. Oil on canvas, 50x70 cm; 2012



Jorgen Faxholm: coastal landscape of a small Danish island, 2012

 If one waits long enough, little Danish islands like this one will disappear into the sea.
The southern part of Denmark already represents a partly drowned landscape, sinking steadily since the end of the last ice-age, fastest since 7000 BC.
In the shallow waters south of Funen (Fyn) one can observe submerged stone barrows and find drowned stone-age settlements. The deepest settlement is found at -47m in the waters between Funen and Sjaelland.
Thoughts about present climate change?

Danish Farm in Summer Dress; oil on canvas 50x70 cm - 2012.

Jorgen Faxholm: Late summer, a field of barley, beets and green, juicy grass

Here's a summer-view of the same old farm I painted in the mid of winter.
In Denmark even a summer's day can be rather chilly - something I have tried to indicate with the colour-palette.

There's little more to say about this landscape.
Let the painting talk.

Old Danish Farm in winter dress, 2012

Jorgen Faxholm Lolland Farm - oil on board 60x80cm, 2012

Lolland, in the southern part of Denmark, is a windswept island with huge fields, where the main crop is sugar beets. If there's ever snow in Denmark, there will be snow on Lolland - resting amongst the furrow ridges made by the plough - if not just covering the lot.
This provides for great contrasts in the landscape.

West Swedish Coastal Landscape



Jorgen Faxholm: Swedish coast. Oil - 50 x 70 cm



- from a photo taken during a long forgotten kayak voyage.



A rare occasion of a calm sea!

Paintings Sept.-Oct. 2011



Storm over Kattegat, Denmark, Memory of many
5 hour crossings in the 1950s.    Oil on canvas, 50x70cm



My Canna explosion, summer 2011
Oil on canvas 50x70cm

Simested Aa (River), North Jutland

Many years ago I took a photo of an almost undisturbed Bronze Age landscape in the north of Denmark.
A small river winding its way through a meadow, backed by Bronze Age tumuli - a refreshing sight, compared with the disappearance of waterways through drainage or canalisation.

Ripe for a painting - and here it is.
An early summer evening with a full moon:
.

Simested River, oil on canvas, 50x70cm, Jorgen Faxholm 2011

La Rose du Thoronet



La Rose du Thoronet, Oil on board.



I finally managed to complete a picture that I have had in mind since 1996.

Abbaye du Thoronet is an old Cistercian monastery in Var, Provence. Ruined to some extent, but also with major parts under reconstruction and quite well preserved. You can almost see the monks wandering around in the cloisters and hear their Gregorian chorus.

It is not nearly as large as the other famous cistercian monastery, Clairveaux, but almost beats it in atmosphere.

I visited on a very warm September day and it hit me, how clever the old monks were, when they sought out the best places for their 'humble' abodes - close to a river, but on the highest point, catching a little wind to chill the 'chaleur'.



Fyn Island Denmark 2003

Jorgen Faxholm, "The bridge". Oil on Board, 2011.

The Bridge.

The Bridge over 'Storebaelt', connecting Sjaelland and Fyn, viewed from the Fyn side.

An incredible engineering work, only surpassed by what Nature itself produces - 

Samsoe Summer, Denmark, Oil on Board.

Samso Island, 1994, Oil on Board

The gentle landscape of Samso Island in Denmark just called out to be painted.

Rolling hills, fields, farms, the light house and houses half hidden by the trees with the backdrop of a deep blue ocean was too much to resist.
From sketches made during a long forgotten holiday - - -

Early drawings - 1964-5

Lost - but found again.

Another Epiphany!!

I have lost many drawings during my many moves, but suddenly these two turned up! My early ventures into drawing and painting at the age of 21!

Pompeii, Temple of Jupiter on the Forum

Tour St. Jaques, Paris

Many happy memories came rushing back together with the unexpected appearance of these two ink drawings.

Obvious faults in the details? Sure - but I could draw at an early age; Tracy Emin still can't ;-)

Manuel Robbe or A. Lafitte (1872-1936)

An Epiphany.
Or perhaps this is a slight exaggeration?


A.Lafitte, Coastal Scene. Aquatint ca. 1925, 70x50cm.
Original frame from the 1930's.

 Nevertheless - My Mother spent several years in France between WWI and II.
Among the pictures and other memorabilia that she brought home was this picture, signed by a certain A. Lafitte - probably with a pristine white frame when she bought it, now with a slight sense of age in the paper - and yet, still with brilliant colours and no foxing.
I have always liked this aquatint etching and many times speculated who this artist, A. Lafitte could be, but never found a chance to solve the riddle. Until now. I even remember that we had a smaller picture by the same artist, another couple of ships, but I must admit, that I have managed to lose it during my many moves.
Alphonse Lafitte apparently was a psudonym, under which the Belle Epoque artist Manuel Robbe began to work after 1920, until his death in 1936. He used it rather exclusively for his marine and Brittany paintings and aquatints, perhaps because he wanted to create a more commercial image than as expressed in his many well-known pictures of more or less dressed women - usually less!
he was well educated, specialising in etchings and aquatints and had learnt at an early stage how to master the printing in many colours from one etching.
How on earth would I have known that before the age of the Internet?
There is no doubt that this etching only survived because of my love of ships!

Oh, and value?
Probably not enormous, unfortunately, but other Robbe etchings of this size sell at auction for $500-$1500, so the small etching means a loss of $100-200.
In the grand scale of life's other losses it means nothing - except that the loss of art always is a sad thing.

Fishing Trawler, West Coast of Denmark (North Sea/ Vesterhavet)

Fishing trawler, Danish North Sea coast
Jorgen Faxholm Oil on board 2011

Painting after a photo from a trip along the west coast of Denmark many years ago.
The habit of pulling the small North Sea trawlers from Thorup, Loekken, Vorupoer and other Danish West Coast villages up on the beach is fast disappearing. This way of fishing is not economic any more. The good news is that modern trawlers are larger, more effective and can take a bigger load. The bad news is, that they slowly trawl the waters empty of fish.

In 20 years this painting will indicate how fishing was done in the past - the same way the Skagen-painters showed what fishermen looked like around 1910.
All gone!
The only structures remaining on the beach might be the many German bunkers from WWII - at least for a while, as they are slowly being washed into the sea as well.

Chateau Neuf (Var) Anno 1995

The ruined village Chateau Neuf -
Jorgen Faxholm: Oil on Canvass 2011, 50x40cm

Just north of Nice are the remains of a fortified village. It takes a cheek-biting drive along narrow serpentine roads through a rather barren landscape to get there, but that was the whole idea 500 years ago, when general access would have been nigh on impossible. It must have been a cold existence in the winter and a life without running water in the summer - but what don't humans do in order to stay alive? Anything would be preferable compared to a life as slaves in a North African hell-hole.
The name is as old as the village: Chateau Neuf!!
It was abandoned already in the 16th C. - an indication of it's general inhospitable location.
Today it is an enchanting place, mainly serving as a backdrop for the odd tourist's 'pique-nique'.



One of the ruined village towers.
Jorgen Faxholm: Oil on canvass 2011, 50x40cm.


Climbing the village is not without danger and it certainly demands firm boots on your feet. The towers and houses are slowly but surely crumbling away and nothing is done to preserve the site. On the top the remains of a stronghold can be found and every building on the slope appears to have been constructed with defense in mind. The whole area is covered in thick, prickly shrubs that eeke out a miserable and arid existence. The hill shows clear signs of terraces, where the inhabitants could grow a few vegetables or keep their cattle and sheep in times of attack.
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the villagers in the neighbouring hamlets still claim ownership of Chateau Neuf properties; the French have the most strange and convoluted inheritance system on earth and people prefer to let their houses fall into disrepair rather than selling them to strangers.

I love the place, though - but eerie it is!

Tourtour, Provence (Var) 1994

Jorgen Faxholm: Oil on canvas,  50x60cm

Holiday Villa, Tourtour Sept. 1994



I remember the holiday as being cold at night, warm in the day - and Tourtour being a touristic village high in the clouds - and populated mainly by German and Dutch tourists, the 'Tabac obligatoire' and a restaurant catering more to Schweinshaxen and Uitsmijters than Bouillabaisse.
In other words: a global village already in 1994.
Once upon a time it was a little French village with typical Provence houses clinging precariously to the edge of nowhere.
Potected by the castle in the centre, the view from Tourtour towards the south remains breathtaking, though. The pirates of the 16th C would have had little more than a snowball's chance in a warm place to arrive unobserved.
Surprisingly, the public 'lavage' was still in use, taking its water from clear and utterly cold mountain streams.

This is the forecourt of the house we had rented and it was a wonderful, albeit very lonely, base for our excursions.
The Oleanders were in full bloom, displaying their blood-red flowers all around the house.
Behind us was a large meadow, that probably had been the feeding ground for a few cows belonging to the ruined farm a little higher up the hill.
This was the topic for another of my Tourtour paintings from 2010.

Jensine racing Bessie Ellen 2007

Jorgen Faxholm: Jensine and Bessie Ellen around Fyn Island 2007
Oil on board, 50x70cm

Jensine and Bessie Ellen
Jensine is Denmark's oldest wooden ship still sailing, a 1-master yacht (Jagt), built in Aalborg by J.W.Riis, 1852. She has since been faithfully restaured by a consortium in Haderslev, Denmark.

Bessie Ellen was designed and built by W.S. Kelly in 1904 in Plymouth to carry cod fish for the Newfoundland trade. In 1907 she was purchased by Captain J.S. Chichester to begin working as a general cargo ship in home waters. She is the last remaining West Country 2-master Trading Ketch (Galease).

Hulst roofscape 1976

Jorgen Faxholm: Hulst, roofs of modern dwellings
contrasting with the medieval Begijnhoof
and poplar trees on the old city rampart.

HULST, The Netherlands.
Oil on board, painted 2010 after a photo taken 1976.
For the art-critic(al) person:
The painting is divided in 3 horizontal layers:
1. Roofs, 2.Medieval building backed by trees and 3. Sky.
There are 2 clear diagonals going through the painting: from the white window in the gable to the right, via the small white structure on a roof to the main tower of the Begijnhof, leading the observer's eye to move back and forth from SE to NW. Next, the roof tiles on the foreground house attracts attention, leading the eye over the chimneys to the little white tower - and finally resting on the horizontal band of poplars.

Contrasting colours (ochre/umber of the bricks and roofs vs the green trees; and the yellow of the tower vs the blue sky).
The slightly muddled blue of the sky reflects a late summer's day with a colour toned down by the
industrial output found along the coast from Antwerp to Calais.
.

Samsø North coast 1995



Jorgen Faxholm: Samsø coastal landscape, Denmark 1995
Acrylic on board, 50x60cm



After a sketch and a photo during my holiday in 1995.
Painted 2010

 

Humlebæk Stejleplads, Coast of Øresund, Denmark



Jorgen Faxholm: coast of Øresund, oil on board 2010

 From a sketch made in 1995.
Island of Hven in the background.

Cherry trees in Slavsko,  Ukrainian Carpathian Mountains  

Jorgen Faxholm: Ukrainian farm drawing 2003

Jorgen Faxholm: Ukrainian farm, 2010, Oil on board