Mathias Malling Mortensen, Richard Mortensen - Alt det som ikke er

Hard cover book 
Pages: 160
Language: Danish
Size: 225x280x20mm
Design: Nicolai Bejder Studio
Published by: Aftryk

Mathias Malling Mortensen has never met his grandfather, the renowned painter Richard Mortensen. Despite the grandfather's paintings filling the walls of Mortensen's childhood home, he was never spoken of, due to a deep conflict between the father, Finn Hauberg Mortensen, and Richard. Instead, the grandfather became a presence through his pictures – an absence that spoke in colours, shapes and symbolism.

Mortensen's own artistic practice is characterized by a unique style within 'cut-out' image production, where he combines painting, collage and sculptural elements to explore space in a new way. His works draw inspiration from both the Danish Linien movement and Italian spatialism from the post-war period, and his focus is on the fundamental elements of painting: colour, texture and space.

With intense monochromatic color fields and layers of paper or canvas, he creates enigmatic compositions in which the negative space plays as important a role as the positive. Through a long-term study of space and emotions, and a parallel practice with visual diaries, Mortensen creates works, that evokes a strong emotional response. His detailed records of architectural and botanical elements serve as the basis for his painterly experiments, and his art can be seen as an in-depth reflection on how the environment around us can trigger complex emotional responses.

Words by Majken Overgaard and Christiane Finsen

This book is published with with generous support from:
New Carlsberg Foundation, DK

View more works by the artist here.