Preface by Sven Jørn Andersen, mag. art.
Museum Director to the exhibition at trapholt Museum of Art 1993.

Roussillon 1992, 200x245 cm.

Preface.

I have great pleasure in welcoming the public to the one-man exhibition with paintings by Uffe Christoffersen. This seals an old bargain between the artist and this museum, and at the same time marks the publications of ‘Carnivora’, Thomas Kappel’s book on the artist Uffe Christoffersen.

 Uffe Christoffersen, born in Hellerup in 1947 was educated from 1968-74 at the Academy of Art in Copenhagen, where he was tutored by Harald Leth and Egill Jacobsen. He made his début in 1971 at Charlottenborg’s Spring Exhibition and has been a frequent exhibitor in Denmark as well as abroad. Since 1990 he has had permanent residence in France, without however letting go of the Danish exhibition circuit.

Roussillon 1992, 200x245 cm.

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     Uffe Christoffersen is very much a figurative artist. But at the same time he is a good example of a member of the Neo-expressionistic movement, which has grown up in Denmark since the beginning of the 1970s, and which was driven forward by the now defunct artists group Violet Sun. Uffe Christoffersen, who was a driving force in this group, has especially become known for his colourful depictions of wild animals, first and foremost obsessed with the individual animal’s characteristics: shape, colour, texture, movement and maybe the most difficult, the psyche of the savage beast.

 Like many others of the artists of this generation he has reinvented painting as an art form. His handling of oil colours is a very conscious use of a rich coloristic palette and a constant search for pure colour quality. On top of this comes just as conscious a use of oil paint as a material, where the picture space is built up layer upon layer in a contrast between thin washes and heavy strokes of paint.

Uffe Christoffersen’s obsession with colour does not limit itself to the aesthetic, however. On his many travels he has searched for the painting materials where they are to be found in their raw state. The samples he brought home with him have subsequently been analysed and tested in numerous laboratory experiments. In these studies Uffe Christoffersen has gained a vast knowledge of the possibilities of colour expression, and it is with this technical ballast that he is able to improvise and follow his own intentions.

 Uffe Christoffersen is an original and talented artist at the same time classically disciplined and modern and liberated in his mode of expression. His special choice of motif gives him the ability to cultivate the individual elements of the picture, but his interest in animal life contains a warm love of nature, which is in constant danger of destruction because of man’s abuse. Perhaps these animals thus depicted can be experienced as modern fables about human relationships? Uffe Christoffersen’s pictures appeal strongly to one’s immediate appreciation as well as inspiring to deeper reflections.

It would therefore seem obvious that Uffe Christoffersen’s exhibition here at Trapholt Museum of Art is built up around the theme of ‘Savage beasts’. The great majority of the approximately 20 paintings have been produced since his ‘exile’ to France, several of them painted especially for this present exhibition. There are however several retrospective glances, for example to Trapholt’s own tiger painting, which in 1992 was exported to the whole world as the motif on the World Wildlife Fund’s Card of the Year.

 The public can look forward to a great and colourful experience.

Sven Jørn Andersen
Museum Director, mag. art.

^{Roussillon 1992, 200x175 cm.}

From the studio in Fontarèches

Studio Notes by Uffe Christoffersen,
edited by Sven Jørn Andersen

Since 1990 the artist Uffe Christoffersen has resided permanently in the south of France, where he also has his studio, in the village of Fontaréches near Nîmes. Simultaneously with his preparations for the exhibition at Trapholt Museum of Art he has made a  series of notes, so that we are able to follow his work in the studio. The notes have been faxed to the museum together with numerous working sketches.



 Fontarèches, the 29th  May 1992.

Dear Sven Jørn,

                                            Today I have finished selecting the colours I shall use in the coming period. There are two yellows. I usually use pure cadmium colours. I have now subdued them a bit, so that they are more like the yellow ochre from Roussillon.

This colour is bright and beautiful when it outside in the sun. But if you take it home with you, it seems grey and boring, especially when mixed with linseed oil. It is akin to the sea, which is so blue. But if you take it up in your hand, the colour disappears!

The other colours I have chosen are red ochre in two nuances, several blues and two greens, - a brilliant green and a dark green. At the same time I have started to select subjects which will go with the colours. In the coming weeks I will be sketching furiously.

Fontarèches, the 24th September 1992.

I have tidied up in my studio. The walls are readied for two large paintings 200x245 cm. The subjects have been worked over in the two sketches I enclose. I have also made two water-colours and two smaller paintings. So now I feel ‘strong and free’ and able to start on the two large paintings. Inspired by the ochre pits of Roussillon, one of the pictures is to be reddish in colour, the other yellow. The last time I painted with ochre colours, I had tied myself down to using these colours exclusively. I thought it was only right to use these purely ochre colours to recreate an ochre colour tone.

But the ‘real’ colours in the large banks of ochre, which shine yellow and red in the sun, can only be recreated by helping the ochre paint colouring on its way by adding strong yellow and red cadmium colours.

Some of the slopes are nearly striped.  I will draw on the places where the ochre colours create striped patterns for my paintings.

But for the time being I have spread two canvasses out on the floor. The subject matter will be sketched out with charcoal and then I will pour turpentine over the lot. Then I will start painting with a thin wash layer. It does not matter if the colours run into each other. I would actually like them to mingle with each other.

Fontarèches, the 25. September 1992.

I made a good start on the painting yesterday, even though it was a bit scary with the large canvasses. But now that the motifs have been drawn up and a thin coating of paint is splashed all over, I have accustomed myself to the sizes. I have crawled round on both pictures almost like an animal marking out its territory.

The two canvasses were still wet with turpentine. Firstly I spread a thin yellow paint over large areas, then red, blue and green. I lifted the canvas up by one edge, so that the colours started to run together. It was like working with a giant-size water-colour.

Now the two canvasses stink to high heaven. All the doors and windows are open and I will start on something else. But no. I am already thinking about how I will proceed with the paintings.

My two large tiger paintings are (probably) inspired by an archaic lion sculpture, where the animal has five legs. This gives perpendicular motion. The lion has become a tiger. More perpendicular movements. I think the figure became a bit too static, and therefore I have added another head to the rear, pointing in the opposite direction. A kind of ‘double portrait’ you might say. I have painted double portraits before, but not as here in full figure.

The rear head is to be dark, the front one light. The animal’s stripes will be light on a dark background – and vice-versa. The background will take part in this double contrast.

In one of the paintings I have added a snake which coils round the tiger’s body and twists it so that the rear head faces downwards. I think this has given movement at the same time as the rear head has become reversed and graphically pleasing.

Fontarèches, the 28th September 1992.

After I took a closer look at the large canvasses this morning, I think that the colours have become too sharp. The white canvas was not covered completely. One picture is meant to be ‘shining yellow ochre’ and the other ‘shining red ochre’. I had the first sketches and water-colours to be able to compare the colours.

Therefore I decided for the most part to add the ochre colours in transparent layers. Once again I let the turpentine run out over the two surfaces and subsequently painted large areas with thin ochre paint. When the paint is so runny it is easily absorbed by the canvas and by the first layers of colour. In this way the overall impression is homogenous.

Both paintings have now got their own colour tone, which seems right in relation to the subject matter. When the turpentine has evaporated tomorrow I can hang the canvasses up on the wall.  Then the time has come to start on the details.

No more painting today. I have to do my French homework now, because I have a class this evening.

Fontarèches, the 1st October 1992.

Today I have hung the pictures up on two walls. The first colour surfaces with strong cadmium colours and the following layers of thin, transparent ochre colours have given a special colour tone, and the ochre colours have gained strength. You can only just make out the subject matter under the layers of paint. This time I will concentrate on preserving the colour tones.

As the paintings are so large, if one stands in front of them at a distance of 2-3 metres, then the colours light up in the same way as one would experience it on a sunny day in the ochre pits. I have just picked out the light and dark ochre colours. The graphic effect has also been accentuated in this way.

The last time I visited the ochre pits in Roussillon I suddenly made out a cobalt blue stone the size of a one-crown piece (5 pence piece). It shone out against the red soil. When I picked it up and stood with it in my hand it became an ordinary grey stone. I threw it down to the ground and immediately it lay on the ground it changed back to a brilliant blue. I don’t know if I can recreate this experience, but I must try.

I have used the experiences I have had working with the large pictures on a series of smaller pictures. But I must stop here, my French verbs await.

Fontarèches, the 4th November 1992.

I am now working on four large paintings. I hope they will all be ready for the Trapholt exhibition.

The four pictures each represent a different colour tone in the ochre scale: yellow ochre – red ochre – caput mortuum – pink ochre. You can probably recognise the subject matter from the small sketches I sent you. The motifs are quite violent. Wild animals fighting snakes. They twist and turn with each other. My experience is that the motifs’ complexes and conflicts fight back and provoke me to find solutions. I must be able to do this having a knowledge of the imagery involved: shape, space, rhythm, complementarity etc.

At the moment the paintings are about half way through their development, and I have started a real ‘dialogue’ with them.

I can see that something is missing , an interplay between nature, the colours and the content. Therefore I will add some strong colours, not as a provocation but to allow the earth colours to be even more precise. Then a rhythmic exchange between active and passive colours will occur and thus the character of the violent motifs will be strengthened. All four paintings are hanging on the walls of my studio. I have a strong experience of living inside my pictures.

 Fontarèches, the 20th November 1992.

 So now the painting which is to be the motif on the exhibition poster is also ready. Now it has to dry for about three weeks. Then I will send it off so that the printer can get started.

The painting is a double portrait of a tiger’s head built up round a circle. It is in a brilliant yellow tone which will, I am sure, be suitable for a poster.

The mouth is painted with a broad lemon yellow semi-circle and there is red ochre inside this. Where the mouth is dark, the teeth have been painted as strong white triangles. Two black fangs with a bright, yellow background. It is the constantly clashing contrasts which give excitement to a picture, both its shape, colour and motif. Everything being painted in a flowing stream, lightly and playfully like a juggler keeping his balls in the air.

 With regards,

Uffe.