art in tavira




Leif Lønne, drawings and paintings



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Leif Lønne

Nasceu em Sandefjord, Noruega, 1959.
Born in Sandefjord, Norway, 1959.

Leif Lønne ê membro da Associaçaõ Artistr Noruegueses de Artes Visuais.
Leif Lønne is a member of the Association of Norwegian Visual Artists.

Website: www.lonnesart.artspan.com

Some projects/exhibitions:


Exposições colectivas/Group exhibitions:

1980 - Vestlandsutstillinga, Norway.
1981 - "The Outsiders...", Nordkalottens Hus, Tromsø, Norway.
1984 - Vestfold Bildende Kunstnere & Kunsthandverkeres Sommerutstilling, Vestfold, Norway.
1986 +
1987 - Galeriade Arte de Tavira, Tavira, Portugal.
1988 +
1989 - Galeria Internacional de Arte, Almançil, Portugal.
1990 - Stipendutstillinga, Oslo, Norway.
1990 - Galeria Monumental, Lisboa, Portugal.
1991 - Exhibition arranged by manager Hilde Vertommen, Bruxelles, Belgium.
1992 - L`Escale, Bruxelles, Belgium.
1996 - "Fem former...", Drammen, Norway.
1997 - Opplandsutstillinga, Lillehammer & Omegn, Norway.
1998 +
1999 - Exhibition with painter Elisabeth Slettnes, Kunstnerhotellet, Lillehammer, Norway.
2000 - KIO, Lillehammer, Norway.
2002 - Association of Artists in Tavira, Tavira, Portugal.
2002 - Had the idè to create an organization/group of artists in Tavira, wich was given name by Marika: Cavalo Verde.
2002 +
2003 +
2004 +
2005 +
2006 - Exhibitions mainly with "Cavalo Verde...".
2007 - Creating the musical group Duruti & Malatesta, wich idè is to combine music with
visual art.
2008 - "Geografias Variaveis..." Palaçio de Galeria, Tavira, Portugal.


EXPOSIÇÕES INDIVIDUAIS/SINGLE EXHIBITIONS:

1982 +
1985 - Galleri Bakgårn, Sandefjord, Norway.
1987 +
1988 - Galeria de Arte de Tavira, Tavira, Portugal.
1989 +
1990 - The Gallery of International Art, Almançil, Portugal.
1990 - Skjellvika, Sandefjord, Norway.
1991 - Chausse de Monse, Bruxelles, Belgium.
1993 +
1994 - Galleri Uten Grenser, Oslo, Norway.
1995 +
1996 - Galleri Nybyen, Sandefjord, Norway.
1999 - Promenaden, Sandefjord, Norway.
2002 - REF, Tavira, Portugal.


AQUISIÇÕES/AQUISITIONS

1980 - Fylkessykehuset i Sogn og Fjordane.
1983 - Norsk Kulturråd.
1992 - Sandefjord Kommune.
1994 - Luftfartsverket.
interview Postal de Algarve (pdf file)

Leif Lønne says his art belongs to society...
BEING A PAINTER IS A VERY SOLITARY WORK.

Interview by Paula Ferro. Transelated to english by Luis Montireo.

"I have passed all my life learning how to draw as a child..."
(Pablo Picasso)

Leif Lønne was born in Norway in 1959. When I ask him how he discovered his own tendencys for art, he answered: "I escaped from kindergarden when I was a kid..."
We both laugh, and continue: "I have always made drawings; I always had a big need
to express myself in a creative way. Always. Since I was a little boy." He smiles again, in a funny way. "I realized that if I was an artist, I could manage without a boss." He looks at me very quietly. "When I was in my twenties...I met a norwegian painter, wich took me to a small artist-comunity. After painting for half-a-year...I was invited to participate in one of the biggest ewxhibitions, with a jury...in Norway." Smiling, taking a look for his own memories. "I had a wonderful beginning. My first painting I ever exhibited, I didn`t want to sell it...but when I came to the opening, it was already sold." He has this expression that he doesn`t forget, but also that he doesn`t mind.
BEING A PAINTER IS A LONELY WORK.
His face was in another dimension.
"I admire groups like Cobra and Blauwe Reuter, cos I like to see artists working together...doesn`t matter what area wich one works...creativity for me, is to express oneself."
Short brake. Looking at me with his metalic blue and inocent eyes.
"We are serious and lonely, but we should all stay together - unite - ." New smile.
"For a long time I didn`t see such a positive vibration as there is now, in Tavira." During the moment he was thinking. "In Norway, the artists are very united, and well organized...I wish to live something similar in Tavira". Leif Lønne has a connection with Portugal for the last 22 years. When he was a kid he dreamt about living in Spain or Portugal.
UNIONS IN NORWAY ARE STRONG BECAUSE THE ARTISTS ARE UNITED.
He was living in several artistic comunities in Norway. "Where the collectivs excists, organization excists too. Inside the governmental organizations, we can create our own collective, wich people we easily can identifie ourselves with. And then we can have our own group. In Norway the unions are strong, because the artists are united, they have made a law that says that for every official building, one part of the investment goes for
artistic decoration". He never went to any unyverity; the only one he ever went to was the University of life. And the contact with the other artists, in various ways of creativity.
The tecnic comes, contacting other artists, and through participating in work-shops.
"I grew up in an artistic invirement. My father played cello, was a maestro and a writer.
Since I was a kid, I^ve been in an invirement of music, and arts in general. Many artists frequented our house on regular bases. My father`s dream was that each child should have the possibility to learn to play an instrument - for free - . I am not just a painter, I am also a writer and musician. The need to express myself is so intense, that I could not be satisfied by working only in one area.
Beeing a musician also started in child-hood.
"I started to play classical guitar when I was ten. I have been in a music-school for children. My father`s dream was achived, in a way. He was working in the Musicians Union.
ACTING AS A MUSICAN STARTED WHEN HE WAS A TEENAGER.
"I have played with various bands in Norway from I was 13 years old. I started playing rock`n roll...and I also paint rock`n roll. I have been very influenced by Lou Reed, he was playiong with Velvet Underground, wich rehursled in Andy Warhol`s The Factory.
There is my link between music and painting. In the pop-art of Andy Warhol. My dream is to create something like The Factory. Where all kinds of art can be involved in a creative prosess."
Duruti & Malatesta is the alter egos from Leif Lønne and Luis Monteiro (they have recently created a cd under this name, called "I wanna go to space..."). "The words and music is mine, and the arrangements are from Luis and me together. The lyrics talks about the underground; the forgotten outsiders. I want to sheare, I believe in an open society...I would like to pay atention for those living under marginal positions;there is always a reason when an extreem action or happening appears in somebodys excistense.
"Nobody should try to tell me what to do in my art-work."
Francis Bacon is another big referense. "He was a great painter, and a good excample,
how we can combine beauty with horror. I have already exhibitet in several cities in Norway, in Belgium - In L`Escale, in Bruxelles - in Lisboa and Algarve." For 14 years he has been living in and around Tavira. "My art belongs to society, but if the society doesn`t want to pay me what I want for it...I prefere to keep it for me...They are mine...!"
He knows what he wants, and he never paints on comand.
"If somebody asks me to paint a nice portrait or a beautiful flower, I answer the same as Janis Joplin, after she had performed Mercedes Benz 200 times in one month: I`m not a
f.............juke-box."
His own way as a painter has been made with his own steps. "Nobody should ever try to tell me what to do as an artist. Conformism...? Never. Conformism is prostitution in human relations. The compromise is the best way to lie, cheating to the others and us, even having a reward for good behaviour...for me comformism is oportunism, hypocazy and compromise. I hate all thes forms of beeing."
" I am a rupest-painter as Basquiat. I have also published a short-storie in an antologie, together with among others Charles Bukowsky...the story is actually from tavira."
The poetry and the music is conected on the horror-beauty of Francis Bacon. The
suburbians and the way of being or acting in a marginal way, is the prefered them. "My jungle is the asphalt. When others are looking for the mountains or the sea...I`m looking
for the asphalt. Asphalt is nature."
He considers himself a rupest-painter.
"When I grew up...my parents had reproductions of rupest-paintings on the walls. My father was also involved with archelogy, and that had a big a influence on me. I consider myself a rupest-painter, like Basquiat." He is inspired by old and contemporary painters.
"My prefered painter is Asger Jorn...a danish painter from th Cobra group. Edvard Munch and Juan Miro have also inspired me a lot."
Leif talks about many other painters, some of them, wich he sheard moments of creativity, and others with whom he also sheared the nescesityty of creativity...and he only knows by history. "One artist from Iceland that I admire a lot, is Sigurdur Gudmundson, who makes instalations, and photoes from the instalations." He knows what he is doing in his way of art. "Picasso and Braque have changed the way to look at the world, with thir cubism. And Magritte made a painting with a pipe, wich he called..."This is not a pipe...".
Being a painter is not an act of inocense...as manipulation of how to look at objects or matters makes part of the project. The biggest mistake in the art-world during last century, was that Adolf Hitler
did not enter the Academy of Art in Vienna.
The colour is very important in his own art-world. "The human eye is capable to see
more or less 800.000 spectrums of colours...and I love them all...! Take a look at rascism.
There is something I have to say: It`s the most stupid thing...becos I never found two people with the same colour."
Leif Lønne`s paintings can be seen at the exhibition "Geografias variables" in Palacio de Galeria, in Tavira.


photo © Ola Lars Andresen


For appointments: leiflonne@hotmail.com


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