SPONTANEOUS
FIGURATIVE
ABSTRACT
= TRINITY
My oWn waY
On the Path to
Deeper Artistic Freedom
Part 7
Anno2025 II
The Half Full Bottle
Have to start this journey with Graham Greene's 1982 novel Monsignor Quixote. Here he explores the profound friendship between the devoutly Catholic Monsignor Quixote and the atheist communist El Toboso.One evening, while they are drinking wine together, El Toboso expresses his greatest difficulty with religion: understanding how the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit can be entirely distinct entities and yet one and the same. Monsignor Quixote gestures to three wine bottles, explaining that while they all contain the same substance, the wine is stored in separate bottles.
However, Quixote soon becomes distraught upon realising that while two bottles are full, the “Holy Spirit” bottle is only half full…
I’ve faced a similar challenge with “Action painting” (à la Jackson Pollock). That particular “bottle” always seemed half full to me.
Fusing the figurative and the abstract
In this art video above, the 2nd LP the LooP, I had managed to fuse the figurative and the abstract in my own way, yet I felt there was more to uncover...The New York School & Action Painting
"Action Painting" was something I, as a European, never fully grasped - it was the half full bottle.I did understand and highly admire artists like Mark Rothko, Frank Stella, Willem de Kooning, and Barnett Newman — but the one I couldn’t quite connect with was Jackson Pollock. Pollock was exciting (especially during his last years), but there was something missing for me to truly "see the light" in his work.
One could argue — in simplified terms — that parts of Action Painting were elevated by Harold Rosenberg and Clement Greenberg, both star curators, art historians, and critics.
Perhaps because in Europe, curators had not yet assumed the same cultural authority as their American counterparts. We had French "Tachisme", which never made as lasting an impact as Action Painting did in America. Of course, we also had CoBrA, Art Brut, and the Zero movement, but these were more distinct and never achieved the same cultural impact as the New York School.
Spontaneous painting
The 4 Gatekeepers
The Price of Everything & Larry Poons
Then, in a documentary on NRK (The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation) aired the documentary The Price of Everything, I encountered the American artist Larry Poons, for the first time. What he said in the film struck me deeply.The interviewer asked, "When I told people I wanted to interview Larry Poons, some of them said, ‘What happened to him? Where is he?" Larry Poons responded: "I know. They think I’m dead. It’s not my fault."
I had to see more of Larry Poons - and suddenly, like a gatekeeper, his artworks opened the door to the experience of Action Painting. When something breaks through, it’s not just about sensation, emotion, or intellectual understanding — it produces a result.
For me, that result was a new entry point into the unconscious — or whatever term one prefers.Suddenly a door was open to a world that cannot be seen unless it is raised into the light.
Only two visual artists had so far given me something that truly transformed me, flipped my perception, or however you want to put it. One was Lars Tiller, who showed me that red could be far away, and blue close. He also said "People think the colour of love is red, the fools, they don't know love - brown is the colour of love". The other was the Polish-Norwegian Ryszard Warsinski, who led me to abandon black pigment — teaching me instead to mix black from the primary colors.
And now, Larry Poons had, indirectly, revealed the gateway to an invisible world.
Not only a trinity of the spontaneous, the figurative and the abstract – but now also a trinity of artists: Lars, Ryszard, and Larry. Perhaps I was born under a lucky star — or more precisely, under a trinity star.
Detail: Anno2025 I
I’m not drawn to illustration. I don’t aim to offer social critique either — slogans might do that better. And philosophy or religion aren’t my starting points. If they were, I would have chosen to be a writer, philosopher or theologian instead of a painter.
Håkon Bleken on Lars Tiller
But at some point, the white canvas—or the digital white square—must be approached. I neither seek to depict nature, animals, or people in the traditional sense. Still, a beginning on the white square is needed. The legendary artist Håkon Bleken said in a TV interview on NRK:"The white surface is quite dreadful. I never start with a completely white canvas. Lars Tiller didn’t either. Lars Tiller had his students paint anything—just to destroy the white surface. Then he cleaned it up.
That’s the point.
It’s just chaos, and then you clean it up. You keep cleaning up until you find an expression you can refine."
The turning point came when I realized I could simply start painting freely on the white surface—without caring what it would become. That realisation made me feel like a freer artist than ever before.
Start: Anno2025 I
I begin with no intention other than to fill the white space with random lines. From there, I discover figuration and work the composition further based on abstract criteria.
Final: Anno2025 I
Spontaneous Painting and Babies...
While this initial phase is not classical Action Painting, it is certainly spontaneous—nothing is pre-planned.I’ve tested this over time, and when people view the painting in its purely spontaneous stage, each of them sees something different. Remember that is how we look at the world, isn’t it?
If you are expecting a baby with the one you love, all I saw in that situation was mamas and papas with strollers, baby carriers, and so forth. Lot’s of them everywhere, many more than it ever was – tons of babies and parents.
Do you think there really were more babies — or is what we see shaped by something invisible within ourselves?
Just asking…
By the way, the word spontaneous comes from the Latin word "sponte" and it doesn’t mean babies. It actually means “of one’s own accord” – so do we all see at our own accord, or just spontaneously?
Spontaneous part
Anno2025 II
Babies and the Subconscious
The Kristiania Bohemians are known for their nine commandments (regardless of who actually wrote them), and the first is:“You shall write your own life.”
But this wasn’t about polished memoirs or bourgeois self-biographies. It was about literature with radical honesty. Key elements were socialism, anarchism, and freedom of expression – and both Christian Krohg and Hans Jæger had their books confiscated in 1885/86.
In visual art, there was also a focus on painting from one’s own life. As Edvard Munch said: “My art is a confession.”
I'm not into portraying my outer life in my work, I don't follow the commanment saying 'I shall paint my own life'.
Above I described the trinity of spontaneous, figurative and abstract - and the "baby"-example. This way I am able to paint my own subconsciousness.
Yeah baby – as the Latin expression goes (-:
PS: Norway’s capital was called Kristiania until 1925, when the city reverted to its earlier name, Oslo. Hence the term Kristiania Bohemians.
Anno2025 III
Video of the spontaneous part
⇓ RELATED UNDER ⇓ -
MY ARTISTIC STORY
FROM 1983 UNTIL TODAY:
Part 1: FIRST TWO SOLO EXHIBITIONS
Part 2: THEN THE COLOURS CAME
You are here ⇒ Part 3: GESAMTKUNSTWERK and HAT REDEMPTION
Part 4: FAILED FAMILY PHOTOS WITHOUT FRAMES
Part 5: IS DIGITAL ART ORIGINAL ARTWORKS?
Part 6: TO FLIP THE PROCESS AROUND
Part 7: SPONTANEOUS-FIGURATIVE-ABSTRACT
“FREE ART – OR FREE THE ART?”
Throughout art history, the significance of art as a creative process has continuously evolved. Over the past 500 years, it has developed to a point where artistic freedom has become fundamentally important.
