Review

Lars Svanholm: Kulturinformation

"… Galleri NB often introduces artists who are not yet known within the academic art establishment, and the gallery is now presenting an exhibition featuring Claes Otto Jennow's captivating interpretations of the landscape in many respects …"

The first thing that greets me when I step into Galleri NB on an unsettled summer day in August is the inherent and direct reference in the exhibited paintings to the sky in its many shades and moods, always featuring the characteristic cumulus clouds that define the spatial composition.

The artist is Claes Otto Jennow, one of the many artists introduced over the years by Galleri NB, an institution within the Danish art scene located in the heart of Viborg. The gallery's owner, Thorkild NB Nielsen, has always had a keen eye for emerging talent, presenting them alongside the gallery's established artists. This is, fundamentally, the path any gallery dedicated to visual art should follow.

A Subtly Surreal Aspect

Claes Otto Jennow originally began his artistic career in Copenhagen's graffiti environment in the late 1980s. Since then, his artistic expression has evolved significantly. In earlier exhibitions, he presented works in photographic print, featuring manipulated deconstructions of both well-known and lesser-known personalities rendered on canvas.

The current exhibition, Between Heaven and Earth, at Galleri NB draws upon much of Jennow's previous experience with visual media, and one can detect a subtle surrealist dimension within the works. This lends the landscapes a slightly hallucinatory yet deeply captivating quality.

According to the gallery's presentation material and the artist's own statements, the paintings are a direct outcome of observations made in nature. Distorted themes clearly emerge within the compositions, resembling photographic subjects captured through a lens using long-exposure techniques.

The zone between the immediate landscape and the infinite expanse of the sky is often rendered with a sharply defined division in Jennow's paintings. The classical device of allowing sky and earth to merge through gradual tonal transitions appears to hold little interest for the artist. Instead, the compositions are defined by dramatic lighting, offering an alternative perspective and visual tension.

At this point, I find it necessary to describe an experience I had during my visit to Viborg and Jennow's exhibition. After an initial viewing of the works, I left the gallery and headed to the Skovgaard Museum, intending to visit an exhibition entirely on my own terms.

Depictions of Nature's Dynamics

During my museum visit, I came across a book featuring a landscape motif by the Danish Golden Age painter Johan Thomas Lundbye on its cover. Instantly, an association formed in my mind with the exhibition I had just left behind. Two hundred years later, Claes Otto Jennow offers a proposal for how painting, much like Lundbye's work, can be used to depict the dynamics of nature.

During the exhibition opening, I raised precisely this theme, while among the steadily growing crowd attending the vernissage there seemed to be a general consensus that the sky itself has changed very little since the early nineteenth century.

Many other things, however, certainly have. In Jennow's paintings, one encounters the characteristic traces left across the sky by air traffic. Moreover, landscapes have now been interpreted, deconstructed, and reconstructed countless times throughout art history. Within this context, Jennow's works inhabit a reliable and meaningful framework.

In the Tension Between Naturalism and Abstraction

If one reflects on the role nature has played throughout modern art history, there can be no doubt that the area between sky and land has been interpreted, depicted, and decoded in innumerable ways. I will refrain from naming the modernists and contemporary artists who have challenged this motif.

It is difficult not to view Claes Otto Jennow as an artist pursuing an uncompromising interpretation of the landscape, one that exists within the tension between pure naturalism and fleeting abstraction. Herein lies both the strength of his work and its challenge. We find ourselves moving along the boundary between the almost sublime and the partly lost, and in this territory the artist enters a realm where painting as a medium is filled with paradoxes.

There is considerable potential in Jennow's approach to painting. Yet the pictorial surface still lacks the decisive formal foundation that would fully anchor its expression. When that element eventually finds its place on the canvas, the prospect of a powerful artistic statement becomes evident.

Keep going!

Art Finds – Discover Your Next Artwork

06.08 - 05.09

In the exhibition Art Finds, we have gathered a carefully curated selection of original paintings, lithographs, and sculptures from Galleri NB's storage collection.

This exhibition gives a range of remarkable works the opportunity to step into the spotlight and meet new eyes and new homes.

Spanning a broad spectrum of styles, expressions, and materials, the exhibition invites you to explore high-quality artworks at attractive prices.

Whether you are an experienced art collector, a first-time buyer, or simply looking for inspiration, Art Finds offers an excellent opportunity to experience art and perhaps discover a truly special piece for your home or business.

You can also browse Galleri NB's collection of approximately 1,700 artworks online at nb-available-art.com. There, you can easily filter by artist, category, and price to find the perfect artwork for you.