After a long preparation, Steen Larsen is ready with an exhibition of new paintings.
Steen Larsen: link to his artworks
Opening reception on Saturday, April 12, from 14:00 to 16:00
The opening speech will be given at 14:15
In connection with the exhibition titled Milestone, Steen Larsen is publishing a book with a foreword by Thorkild NB Nielsen.
Foreword
This book, Milestone, marks an important point in Steen Larsen's artistic journey since the publication of ROAD in 2012. While ROAD gathered his earlier works and artistic development up to that point, Milestone serves as a documentation of his work in recent years—a period in which Steen has further developed his distinctive visual language with even greater depth, immersion, and intensity.
The title Milestone is no coincidence. It refers both to a concrete milestone in Steen Larsen's career and to the visual landmarks he creates in his works. His paintings function as artistic milestones—snapshots of time, place, and atmosphere that captivate the viewer and provoke reflection.
The book is divided into three themes: Rainscapes, Junkyards, and Americana. Each of these themes reflects a central part of Steen’s artistic universe and showcases his ability to merge mood, light, and composition in a way that is both cinematic and sensuous.
In Rainscapes, rain is not just a weather phenomenon but an artistic device that creates reflections, depth, and an almost melancholic beauty. The rain hitting the windshield of Steen’s car transforms nature and urban spaces, amplifies the play of light, and lends the scenes an almost abstract, dreamlike quality.
Junkyards explores another side of reality—places where the passage of time is evident in rust, scrap, and abandoned objects. With a geographic focus on the car graveyard in Båstnäs, Steen Larsen captures a raw aesthetic and a unique poetry in decay. Man-made cars are slowly overtaken and broken down by the forest until they finally disintegrate. It is a perspective on the beauty in the overlooked and an exploration of how we relate to the things we leave behind. Steen Larsen transforms this state into art—in the sense that art must capture and express the fascination with the connection between decay and beauty.
In Americana, Steen Larsen delves into an iconic visual world, where American culture and its visual references unfold. The motifs draw on a collective memory of road trips, diners, billboards, and open landscapes—a nostalgic yet contemporary view of a country that is both a physical reality and a powerful memory of a bygone era.
Milestone is not just a collection of works but a narrative of Steen Larsen's artistic development since 2012. It demonstrates how he continues to reinvent himself, challenge his motifs, and create paintings that capture moods, places, and stories with exceptional precision and sensitivity.
I hope that this book will bring the reader the same joy and fascination that Steen Larsen's works have given me since his debut at Galleri NB in 1992.
Thorkild NB Nielsen
Galleri NB