Martin Aagaard Hansen: The Eternal Village

Nature provides a fantastic feeling of being lonely in a positive way; the contrast of quietness and rumbling.  -Martin Aagaard Hansen

The symbols in the works shift but also keep mumbling the same phrases over again, they may start as possible motifs for the sake of their visual appearance but with the repetition they gather meaning.

 

Symbols: the hidden staircases seen in paintings, the long limbed figures… how figuration plays a part in the work.

The staircase windows came about one evening. I was looking out from my balcony and noticed that all the windows of the neighboring building were dark, and the only lit ones were the hallways with empty staircases. The only warmth of that scene was also the coldest (an empty staircase) I really liked how little it was revealing.

The symbols in the works shift but also keep mumbling the same phrases over again, they may start as possible motifs for the sake of their visual appearance but with the repetition they gather meaning. For example a wheel hovering over a building or a clock always showing 2 o’clock, the wheel, the turning, time creeping.

It’s also nice not always knowing exactly why I place things in the works. It can start almost like saying something to yourself in your head that sounded funny, and then you realize later how relevant it actually was for the trajectory of your day or the mood you were in. Other times it’s just nonsense but at least it got thought through. Visions also arrive late sometimes, the chronology of thoughts that goes into a painting doesn’t always move as linear as people sometimes think.

Figuration was something I felt I negotiated into my painting, coming from a more abstract style of working. It's as if the figuration needs to be okay with their scene for them to appear in the composition, almost as if the surrounding elements are shaping the figures. In that it feels as if the whole thing is breathing together somehow, and it’s not so much just figure and background.

Studio: What is a normal day at the studio like for you? Perhaps you could talk us through your commute, people you may be in contact with (lunch, coffee etc) and how you work (silence? music or podcasts?), do you spend time with source materials (old catalogs or internet searches)?

I keep a very unpredictable studio schedule, I go in here and there when I feel like I have something on my mind. It can be a hint of something, but I need to be curious about what can happen. Painting for me is all about searching, with or without it, I search for content all the time, but it needs to be somewhere beyond the studio too, otherwise I can waste time being there.

I need that sense of urgency or focus, that’s kind of a deal I made with myself. The most consistent thing is that I’m either in the studio or in the forest. Nature provides a fantastic feeling of being lonely in a positive way. The contrast of quietness and rumbling.

When I work it's usually quiet. Listening to music while working can sometimes affect the mood in the studio a bit too much, so i try to leave as much as I can at the door, and then keep the studio to a place of working and not too many other things. Then the overload usually starts again when I leave.

Inspiration: A big question, but what is inspiring you now? As in books, history, place, art, nature, etc…

Old obscure paintings and prints, mycology, publications, town history, tales, personal memory and personal fiction.

Lately I have spent a lot of time in Oslo. Being relatively new to the Norwegian realm of painting is quite lovely, lots of great painters popping up in that search, for example: Lars Hertervig and Bendik Riis have made a big impression on me of late. Obviously it is the town of Edvard Munch so there are all the fantastic works by him, but so many interesting artists besides him too.

Another means of generating inspiration is to selectively “misplace” myself to find something that holds a certain feeling I'm after, instead of always going directly to the source of already existing art. I might putter about in old thrift stores in a part of town that I have never been in. I like the feeling of spaces that seem in between. That dusty melancholy it holds. Just being available to whatever can happen, whatever I see, people I meet and talk to and how conversations can feed the work in the studio.

So much of painting is about looking at stuff, even the insignificant, that you never thought would hold any meaning, and then years later it feels like the most important thing, and can pave the way for a whole exhibition or a body of work. It can also be incredibly draining and can lead to tons of dead ends, but the right kind of dead end can sometimes be full of light and mystery.