I've started painting the thing that I love the most about where I live – the landscape. There’s nothing breathtaking about it, nothing like the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland or anywhere in the Farø Islands. The views are typical of the Danish countryside. But there is a “nature park” (naturpark) where people love to walk, and to one side is a Bronze Age burial mound (ransacked ages ago) which now bears the name of the Fox Hill (rævehøj) as it was home to generations of foxes for decades, maybe even centuries. There is a marsh, and a deep pond that is called a lake (sø); in fact there are two more in the same area, and I’m of the impression that these were once peat quarries. That certainly fits with the depth of the pond. There is an 800-year old church, and across the narrow winding road from it, a farmhouse (now publicly owned and the site of parties and meetings) with an intriguing Star of David built into the loft window. There used to be an old mill, and a mill stream, but these have vanished with time. Oh, and in the distance, the control tower of Værløse airport, once a military airport, where the entire fleet of Danish war aircraft was destroyed in a single German attack in World War II. A 10-minute walk from the house is an R&D and manufacturing facility for the pharmaceuticals giant Novo Nordisk. I live in a very storied place, with a beauty that is modest but real.
I can’t really escape from my penchant for realism, for painting what is there, what my eyes see, and not what my tormented little soul sees. I love to paint the light, the way a feature of the landscape changes with the seasons. So perhaps it is a kind of impressionism I’m moving towards. I start with pastel studies, then paint the same scene or subject in oils. Below are a couple of these studies.
