In front of the vat, with the pulp floating in water, I move into new landscapes, outside my references. It sharpens my attention and my curiosity. As the dialogue with the material take over, I am totally absorbed.
When it works it feels as if my soul is floating along with the pulp. The colours are present in my body and my mind. It is not an idea of the colour, it is the involvement and the energy. Like the colour is the leading star, and I am following.
These three images where made during my second stay as a visiting artist at Awagami factory in Japan in March 2019.
As a child I spent hours sitting on my swing in the dark evenings of fall. As I whistled, the northern light was dancing like a curtain across the sky. I was convinced it was my whistling that made it flutter. I often go back to this feeling –as a kind of mantra – and it follows me into the pulp. Just me and the pulp exploring the world.
This is where I grew up, under the most spectacular mountains, and with the forest as my playground. I adopted a special tree, a pine that was growing sideways, and from my viewpoint in the tree I could watch over the valley, imagining I was travelling anywhere in the world. My grandmother lived in the little house to the right in the picture.