A brief introduction to the beginning of my art
My artistic career started seriously the same time I started practicing karate, in 1986 nine years old. Since then I have combined these two main ways to the max. When I stopped competing with the karate national team, my art took a bigger place in my life.
Visual Art
Fascination and admiration for visual art in the form of drawings and paintings probably existed with me before I could talk. I envied all artists who had the ability to visualize a feeling in colors and shapes. I remember how I could stand at a shop window for video stores, to study painted movie posters. Long afterwards, I was told that it was the artist Drew Struzan who caught my attention especially. The man behind the covers of many Hollywood films – for example, Rambo , Stars Wars, A Prince in New York, Hook, Indiana Jones and many many more .
Curiosity & Inspirational Desirous
I also got stuck in stores where they sold books with beautiful covers – the shelf with novels could not be avoided of course. In toy stores I stuck to all covers of kits of air force planes, bandwagons and ships, etc. – incredibly inspiring. I looked everywhere to be captivated, to study and be inspired by the creations of other artists. During high school I studied every book of art in the library. After high school I visited newspaper shops with art from all over the world, but then came the internet and I, yes … oh lord… ” the sky just opened up ”.
World’s Artists
For many years I have had the routine to discover new abilities from all the art galleries in the world . The list of all the artists I discovered to study and be inspired by over the years is long. The style I developed to date is partly a result of everything I was inspired by, but also a result of conscious choices. To steer development in a direction I wanted my expression to lead. A style and expression with everything it means that cannot be mistaken for being anything but a ” Garip Jensen ”.
Art world
The great thing about this art world is that the ability to ”advance” in any direction is completely endless. It is also I who decide what is genuine dung or painfully admirable . There are no actual rules in general about what is good or bad, except your or my opinion on the matter. If it is good then it is good, and if it’s bad then it’s bad. There are many different reasons to why someone likes or dislikes a particular painting, just like with music. So it really doesn’t matter if someone else claims what’s good or not. ”
Then of course you can discuss general technicall difficulties, if you want to include that in the question of how to value a painting. But everything is still so relative. For Anders Zorn, it was easy to create a ” Zorn-painting ” while it would be completely impossible for Picasso to create a Zorn-painting . If Beethoven is considered to be a brilliant composer, it doesn’t mean that his music will be appreciated more than simple hard rock by someone.
If you were to describe my paintings or digital artwork as music, how would you describe that music?
Well said Picasso
A person who looked at Picasso’s paintings told him at some point that ”I don’t like your art because I don’t understand it”. Picasso then asked if the person in question likes bird singing, – the answer was ”yes”. Of course, the given question was ”do you understand it”? Hopefully, the point was understood. That thought of Picasso is probably our only common denominator, but well said anyway :).
Developing Skills
Artistic abilities begin quite similarly at an early age. Most people start by drawing in black and white with a pen, and later drawing and painting with brushes. I have tested everything , which I also think most artists do before they find their way. What best matches what they want to express in color and shapes.
My artistic development , also went from drawing in black and white with pencils, charcoals and felt pens. Then switched more to drawing and painting in color with pastel pens, oil pastel pens and watercolor pens. Finally, I used paintbrushes and painting knives etc with watercolor, gouache, acrylic, ink and finally oil paints .
Superrealism
After testing all sorts of different techniques, I spent about 10 years developing skills in airbrush technique . This was to develop the realism in my paintings into superrealism , which my interest pointed to at the end of my time in high school.
Just as most people perceive what may be the ”utmost of skill” about painting art, so too did I think superrealism was the top. My opinion on this was the same until I realized in high school that this way of going ironically limited my ability as an artist .
Very quickly, I reached such a high level of realism in the paintings I created, and also realized that my paintings began to resemble the paintings of my role models more and more. I realized that this would lead to an anonymity in my artistic expression. Since then, I have left that way of looking at images, so as to develop a more personal art that I still see only the beginning.
Painting with oils
I had a transition period of a few years before I had completely left the ” photo realism ” behind me. Experimented a lot with mixed technology until I fully realized the oil painting possibilities .
To this day, oil painting has become and has been my absolute favorite medium for a variety of reasons. Other mediums, of course, also have characteristics that can be advantageous to oil painting, depending on what you are looking for. However, I don’t exclude any medium. Everything is fun but I also like to master something, so I like to focus more on what challenges me most .
”The Big Picture” – 500 sqm painting
A 500 sqm big painting
Watch when I’m creating a 500 sqm painting near the airport in Västerås, Sweden here