Ola Billgren
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"Skymningstimme"
Signed O. B and signed by stamp through Anita Nilsson Billgren on verso. Canvas 165 x 274 cm.
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Provenance
Galleri Engström, Stockholm.
Exhibitions
Galleri Engström, Stockholm, "Ola Billgren, nya målningar och collage", 1988.
More information
The present catalogue item ‘Skymningstimme’ is a unique work in Billgren’s oeuvre. The size of the canvas combined with the complexity of the subject means it absorbs the viewer. Part of the ‘Cityscapes’ series, it functions a collage of different places, of sky, earth and air. The saturated atmosphere can only be described as chaos, something that the size of the canvas reinforces. In a piece of writing about ‘Skymningstimme’ Bo Nilsson describes the unique environments Billgren creates in his work: “…in another painting Billgren has called this intermediate state between city and countryside his ‘terrain vague’, best translated as ‘uncertain terrain’. Terrain vague is not a physical place but more a mental state, characterized by a magnificence that may be defined as sublime. It is a complex feeling that holds considerable beauty but also a sense of threat or danger, an added dimension of civilization’s downfall, in German usually referred to as ‘Götterdämmerung’, the twilight of the Gods. The different pictorial levels make us contemplate different elements of our civilization and if we interpret Billgren correctly, things do not seem quite right in our world.
Is it up to the viewer to pause and linger on these the different stages of collapse and in doing so become aware of what is going on in the world around us?”
Artist
Ola Billgren was born in 1940 in Copenhagen but based his career in Sweden. Billgren was self-taught, having only been trained by his parents Hans and Grete Billgren. Ola worked within the mediums of graphic art, watercolour, collage, photography, film, and scenography. He was also an author and culture critic. Known for his versatility, Billgren cultivated a relationship between art and reality in his work.
During the 1960s, he transitioned from abstract expressionism to photographic realism. Over time, his paintings evolved into a fusion of abstract and photorealistic styles, resulting in romantic landscapes where he examined the interplay of light and color. Forms dissolved, and colors were reduced to monochrome, single-colored surfaces that were richly worked and varied.
In the late 1980s, he returned to urban environments in large cityscapes, often painted from a high perspective but maintaining the impressionistic approach seen in his landscapes. Ola Billgren's influence on recent decades of art has been significant. His work is represented in institutions such as Musée National d'art Moderne Centre George Pompidou in Paris and Moderna Museet in Stockholm.
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