"Swedish born, New York artist Mats Pehrson, lives in Chinatown and has a studio in the Wall Street Financial District.
From Wall Street to the meat packing district Pehrson finds vast inspiration for his paintings.
He uses a variety of media, such as oil and acrylic paint, charcoal, transferred images and shellac, creating layers of images on canvas or aluminum, manifesting the city as he sees it. In his work, Pehrson overlaps, covers up, and distorts the images.
Pehrson incorporates in his work, images of the city that are most often overlooked - ads and billboards, signs and stores, people and monuments. The juxtaposition of images in his paintings creates a forum of social commentary, showing the city in an unconventional way. In paintings like Freeze (2008) and Every rose has its thorn (2008), the images of New York City also represent a broader perspective on such issues as gun control, war and religion."

Harry Dennis
Arts Publisher 

'One Hundred Dollars' 101,5x122 Mixed media

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 Mixed media on canvas

'Dress Code' 54x68 Mixed media on canvas

more at http://matspehrson.com/