Richard Höglund
Enthusiasm I: Descent from Nysa (History Painting VII), 2018-2019
gold, silver, tin, lead, bismuth, titanium, various oils and acrylic emulsions, marble pulver, diatomaceous earth, and wine on canvas
226 x 366 cm
89 x 144 1/8 in
89 x 144 1/8 in
Copyright The Artist
Höglund’s latest suite of paintings are made in the color field tradition and are heavy in with intellectual weight expressed in layered detailing. The artist uses wine as his primary...
Höglund’s latest suite of paintings are made in the color field tradition and are heavy in with intellectual weight expressed in layered detailing. The artist uses wine as his primary medium along with his signature technique of applying an underpainting of drawings made in metalpoint, often featuring silver, gold, and lead point. These large-scale works are in conversation with the famed 11th Century quatrains of The Rubáiyát, by Persian astronomer and poet Omar Khayyam.
In these paintings, Höglund utilizes experimental materials and techniques to heighten interconnected rituals of divinity and collective celebration as inspired by the ancient poetry of Khayyam. Citing figures as varied as Shiva and Dionysus as inspiration, Höglund’s wine paintings encourage a collaborative interpretation that amplify the mystical and the poetic.
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Steeped in philosophy and language, Richard Höglund produces paintings and works on paper, all grounded in what he views as the most fundamental expressive form: drawing. As he explains: “Drawing is about making marks, and those marks need to be sensitive and responsive. The lines need to be unmediated as much as possible, to be made with the least amount of obstructions between mind, hand, tool, surface.” Using repetition and seriality along with nonobjective forms and patterns, Höglund’s lines are the fundamental layer within all of paintings.
For Höglund, the act of drawing is as close as we can get to our thoughts before they become inevitably altered by language. The artist employs metalpoint to bring drawing into paintings without diminishing the value of the handwritten line. Utilizing pure silver, gold, iron, lead, bismuth, and copper, and Höglund uses alloys such as bronze, electrum, tin, and lead.
Höglund studied art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and semiology at MIT in Boston, USA. He holds a MFA (DNSEP, 2008) obtained at the Haute école des arts du Rhin, in Strasbourg, France. In 2013, Höglund was selected by Tacita Dean to participate in her workshop at the Fundación Botín in Santander. His paintings are considerations of history and language.
Ezra Pound wrote in a later canto:
the Beauty is not the Madness.
Perhaps beauty is on the horizon of madness, but remains a worldly manifestation of reason and order. A Persian word for crazy is ديوانه (divaneh) and in my ears and thoughts is close to the divine. In the work of Omar Khayaam, 12th century Persian poet, the divine and drunkenness are indivisible.
Drunkenness is at the height of grace in the French language. In ivresse, ecstasy has found a vessel. According to the latin dictum, so has truth.
These paintings are made with wine, and have become a platform for my meandering research into the history and nature of the rapport between the vine and the divine. (Change wording!)
Symposium, a latinisation of the greek for « drinking together » is an apt name for an exhibition of this series of paintings. A painting, like drinking together, is a strange attractor for thoughts of a higher order. A painting lets our thoughts smoulder in the embers of ancient fires lit in the pursuit of truth, in the pursuit of the divine.
In these paintings, Höglund utilizes experimental materials and techniques to heighten interconnected rituals of divinity and collective celebration as inspired by the ancient poetry of Khayyam. Citing figures as varied as Shiva and Dionysus as inspiration, Höglund’s wine paintings encourage a collaborative interpretation that amplify the mystical and the poetic.
--
Steeped in philosophy and language, Richard Höglund produces paintings and works on paper, all grounded in what he views as the most fundamental expressive form: drawing. As he explains: “Drawing is about making marks, and those marks need to be sensitive and responsive. The lines need to be unmediated as much as possible, to be made with the least amount of obstructions between mind, hand, tool, surface.” Using repetition and seriality along with nonobjective forms and patterns, Höglund’s lines are the fundamental layer within all of paintings.
For Höglund, the act of drawing is as close as we can get to our thoughts before they become inevitably altered by language. The artist employs metalpoint to bring drawing into paintings without diminishing the value of the handwritten line. Utilizing pure silver, gold, iron, lead, bismuth, and copper, and Höglund uses alloys such as bronze, electrum, tin, and lead.
Höglund studied art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and semiology at MIT in Boston, USA. He holds a MFA (DNSEP, 2008) obtained at the Haute école des arts du Rhin, in Strasbourg, France. In 2013, Höglund was selected by Tacita Dean to participate in her workshop at the Fundación Botín in Santander. His paintings are considerations of history and language.
Ezra Pound wrote in a later canto:
the Beauty is not the Madness.
Perhaps beauty is on the horizon of madness, but remains a worldly manifestation of reason and order. A Persian word for crazy is ديوانه (divaneh) and in my ears and thoughts is close to the divine. In the work of Omar Khayaam, 12th century Persian poet, the divine and drunkenness are indivisible.
Drunkenness is at the height of grace in the French language. In ivresse, ecstasy has found a vessel. According to the latin dictum, so has truth.
These paintings are made with wine, and have become a platform for my meandering research into the history and nature of the rapport between the vine and the divine. (Change wording!)
Symposium, a latinisation of the greek for « drinking together » is an apt name for an exhibition of this series of paintings. A painting, like drinking together, is a strange attractor for thoughts of a higher order. A painting lets our thoughts smoulder in the embers of ancient fires lit in the pursuit of truth, in the pursuit of the divine.