Ånge Konsthall, Sweden

8 Oct - 7 Nov 2022 

An exhibition of new paintings, drawings, collages and assemblages

Ånge in the middle of Sweden feels as much like my hometown as anywhere in England.  My mother was born there in the 1930s and moved to England after marrying my English father in 1958.  I have travelled between the UK and Ånge to visit family and friends ever since.   

For many years now, I have made paintings featuring the rail lines that run through the town and connect Ånge to the rest of the world.  Ånge is important to the rail networks in Sweden and the railyard is a defining feature of the town, connecting people, the forests and industries from the north to the rest of the world.

As a child, I remember ‘flottning’, the transportation of felled timbers by river and the river Ljungan that runs close to the town filled with timbers. That ended in 1968 when road and rail transportation took over.  

As I made these works over recent years, from my little studio in England I have reflected on what the rail networks and the Ånge railyard mean to me.  While we have been kept distant by COVID and as a united Europe is under increasing threat, the connectivity provided by the rail network has a symbolic significance to me. My paintings are intended as a thank you to the people of Ånge for their longstanding welcome and to all those who work in the town and on the railways. 

I began to paint pictures of the Ånge railyard many years ago, based on sketches and photographs collected during the summer weeks I spent here. When I returned home to my studio these images became my primary source material for larger scale and more ambitious images.  

My Practice

I am drawn to the intricate rhythmic patterns and beautiful colours the subject matter offers. The negative spaces created by interlocking cables, stantions, tracks, sleepers and lighting towers build a matrix across the surface of the canvas which compartmentalise the compositions into a series of linked abstract shapes. I work in a small studio space and up close to the picture surface most of the time. For this reason, the compositions are sketched out first, then squared up and transferred onto the canvases. My focus on the image, dissipates as increasingly I concentrate on the application of paint to create textures that make up the picture surface. I pay attention to the negative shapes and to the colours that convey such a strong sense of place.  When I paint, I’m trying (at a distance) to recall and recreate the feeling of being back in Ånge, and to somehow include the sensation of sounds, light, weather and even the smells! 

I paint in oils and paintings are usually started by pouring paint mixed with oil mediums onto stretched, primed canvas on the floor, allowing the colours to mix as gravity allows. I apply much of the paint without the use of paint brushes, especially in the early stages of creating a picture. Instead of brushes I use rags, old plastic credit cards, tooth brushes, rollers and squeegees, pushing and pulling the paint across the picture surface.  I enjoy the serendipity of working in this way juxtaposed with the rigidity of the compositions. I try to keep both these elements in balance.  

The inclusion of swallows in many of the summer images alludes to this same balance; that between wild nature and manmade structures; freedom and control.

Swallows are migratory and like us, arrive in Ånge for a few weeks in the summer and then head south again as the weather begins to get colder.

Karl Newman