P.G. Thelander has such a distinctive visual language that no observer can remain indifferent. With a twinkle in his eye, he borrows motifs from classical art and freely mixes them with his own musings. Each painting sparks a new idea because art is born from art. He playfully places irrelevant objects, animals, and people in what appears to be ordinary scenes. His paintings surprise, for who wouldn't wonder why there are nuts, bolts, loops, band-aids, strips of wallpaper here and there on tortoises, penguins, ostriches, frogs, and dogs? And the occasional blue cube, orange carrot, or polka-dotted toadstool. Or cucumbers, potatoes, apples, and yellow bananas, and sausages. Not to forget the fly. His imaginative world knows no bounds!
Since the 1970s, a small helpless figure has appeared here and there in his paintings, a paraphrase of Jean Dubuffet's portrait of Henri Calet. When PG Thelander saw him, he immediately and intensely felt a strong connection and couldn't resist "adopting" the little man as his alter ego. Humor and playfulness are trademarks of his art.
PG Thelander studied at Konstfack from 1953 to 1959 and at the Royal Institute of Art from 1959 to 1964. He is a painter, sculptor, and printmaker, readily switching between these various techniques. He has received international acclaim and is represented not only in all major museums in Sweden and several in the Nordic countries but also in London, Paris, Dresden, Mexico City, New York, and San Francisco. Notable among these are the Nationalmuseum and Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Malmö Museum, Gothenburg Museum of Art, Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the British Museum in London, and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.
He is also the artist behind the artwork at Aspudden subway station in Hägersten, Stockholm