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The New Contemporary Art Magazine
Painter Henrik Aa. Uldalen brings riveting new portraits to JD Malat Gallery with his new show, “Lethe.” The artist, who crafted the cover for Hi-Fructose Vol. 24, is known for his impasto, highly emotive paintings. “Lethe” opens December 13 and runs through January 11, 2020.
Henrik Uldalen is a London based artist well known for his emotionally-charged oil paintings of figures, often appearing weightless and diminishing into the background."My work is based on abstract ideas of existentialism and nihilism, and on loneliness and numbness," he says. "They’re fairly loose ideas, as they’re a direct translation of my changing emotional states." We first featured Uldalen on the cover of Hi-Fructose Vol. 24, and here on our blog, where we've seen the artist progress from a more realistic, yet ethereal style to experimenting with abstraction.
It was just last year that Henrik Aa. Uldalen painted a mural on a massive building for a street art project called Ugangprosjektet in Drammen, Norway. Days ago, the artist posted a photo of the piece being destroyed on Instagram. Several of his followers offered their condolences and outrage in reaction to seeing the elegant, dramatic portrait demolished. Words like “heartache” and “crushing” were used; sad emojis rampant. But here’s the thing: Uldalen not only knew this would happen to his work, he counted on it.