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'One Hundred Dollars' 101,5x122 Blandteknik

Glorious Discord:
The Paintings of Mats Pehrson by Suzanne Ramljak

Part poet, part journalist, Mats Pehrson looks at the world with an eye towards life’s contradictions. While he can paint sublimely lovely scenes, he sets out instead to capture the tensions that teem all around us. “Every day there is a struggle for life,” states Pehrson, “and that contention is reflected in my work.”

Accordingly, the artist has enlisted collage as his medium of choice. Pehrson uses collage to its best advantage, to stage a range of startling juxtapositions. Whereas collage usually entails “found” imagery, Pehrson makes his found images, personally taking all the photographs that populate his work. Having captured the ripe moment or telling fragment, he then composes these photos into a visual crescendo. Transferred onto canvas or aluminum, the layered images are further vitalized through various other media, including oil, acrylic, charcoal, gesso, cement, shellac, and sand.

Pehrson’s evolution toward such pictorial complexity was gradual. Born in Sweden, he has remained responsive to his changing surroundings, absorbing and reflecting his environs. The Nordic Light of Pehrson’s native land no doubt illuminates the radiant passages within his paintings. A residency in Spain in the late 1990s resulted in the “Signs and Symbols” series, which reflects the influence of Catalan art, especially the boldly suggestive work of Antoni Tàpies. The artist‘s various travels continue to feed his art, but since 1986, when he moved to New York City, this urban landscape has been his key inspiration and graphic source.

After 2000, Pehrson shifted from largely abstract paintings to increasingly photo-based works. Arranging multiple images like a visual symphony, he develops inharmonious, even cacophonous, effects. Billboards and Buddhas, hookers and Hasids, guns and young girls, all jostle together in his paintings, just as they do on the city streets. Beholding his work is like watching a surreal documentary, as you are confronted with the raw facts of life’s strange splendor.

It is hard not to think of Robert Rauschenberg upon first seeing at works by Pehrson, who openly acknowledges this creative forerunner. Both of these artists have produced photo-based compositions with painterly passages, both experimented with image transfer techniques, and both have a socially conscious outlook. Nonetheless, Pehrson has a distinct iconographic language with his own recurring motifs. His talent as a painter imbues his works with a lush fullness and rich color tonality. And Pehrson’s understanding of pictorial space allows him to produce a striking sense of depth.

While Pehrson may have strong social views, these are not message paintings; they are more riddles than aphorisms. This lack of resolve is by design. By granting room for individual interpretation, Pehrson seeks to “provide viewers with the opportunity to deepen their response” to a given subject. Seducing with cinematic splendor and painterly delight, Pehrson lures us towards a new appreciation of life’s complexity. His paintings remind us that experience itself is a collage of shifting fragments, held together by our own sense of beauty and order.

Suzanne Ramljak is an art historian, writer, and curator.

'Coffee Break' 86,5x127 blandteknik på duk

Från ett fågelperspektiv fångas den pulserande och skiftande storstadens invånare av kameran. Där ovan en ensam voyeur som ser, utan att ses eller uppmärksammas. Nedan passerar en ändlös tät ström av människor oavbrutet förbi. Eller - betraktade från denna utsiktspunkt - snarare en serie objekt i ständig rörelse.

I den anonyma storstadsmiljön rör de sig tillsammans men samtidigt åtskilda. De har emellertid alla en gemensam nämnare - skuggan. En lika ständig som oskiljaktig följeslagare.

Med sina nya målningar fortsätter Mats Pehrson en resa där staden New York är hans inspirationskälla, denna gång sedd från ovan.
Hans nu välbekanta stadsmiljöer har tonats ned, ibland till och med avlägsnats. I stället fokuserar han på människorna och deras skuggor. De visualiseras mot målade bakgrunder som får symbolisera betongstadens gator och trottoarer. Bara en gatuadress, ett skyltfönster, färgstark grafitti eller en trafiksignal påminner om den omgivande storstaden. Flera bilder visar finansmänniskor - Pehrsons studio finns nära Wall Street - som anonyma objekt, likt brickor i ett spel. Fågelperspektivet understryker skuggornas närvaro och inger, med hjälp av djärva bildvinklar, en grafiskt kraftfull och nästan kuslig stämning.

Skugga är ett mörkare område som kan observeras bakom en ogenomskinlig eller endast delvis genomskinlig kropp av något slag som helt eller delvis skymmer en ljuskälla, till exempel solen. En snittyta genom det skuggade området visar en tvådimensionell figur i form av en mörkare siluettform som liknar det skymmande objektet. Den kan observeras till exempel på en vägg eller på marken.

'Dress Code' 54x68 Blandteknik på duk