The dreamlike, abstracted figures in Lars Elling’s paintings appear to be pieces of memories. The Norway-based artist has spent the best few decades building a distinct and narrative-based body of work.
“Elling is a storyteller,” a Galleri Brandstrup statement says. “His layers of imagery evoke memories of childhood, with the possible disturbance and trauma written between the lines. Family is the repetitive theme in Elling’s works; familiar moments infiltrated by surprising or unpleasant elements. The formalistic aspect of Lars Elling’s paintings is characterized by the erased and the broken. The pure visual expression has a meaningful function, where story and poetry are strong fundamentals. The paintings can be seen as a burst of memory, a description of a moment, where the almost experienced or almost seen is presented in a dream like and poetic expression, which can be compared to the poetic expressions in the works of Francis Bacon.”
Elling attended the Bergen National Academy of the Arts. His work appears in both private collections across the world and the EU Commission and Norweigian National Gallery. See more of his work below.
