Interview
Tone Aaness
Tone Aaness is a Norwegian contemporary painter, b. 1973. She has exhibited in Norway and in Europe, and has been selected for several Biennales. She has participated in Group and Solo exhibitions throughout the Country. She is also a performing artist with experience from Concert Halls, open town Ceremonies, Ateliers, Galleries and Museums. In 1999, a strange experience of seeing two paintings not being able to paint them, brought her to Figurative Paint. She stayed in a studio with Norwegian figurative painter Tor Kvarv, in the National Gallery of Norways Collection, part time for the next five years. There she worked with pencil, drawing from nature and painted in Old Renaissance Techniques. She also sculpted in plaster.
In 2003, she attended The Angel Academy of Art in Florence and completed the Drawing Program. She continued to paint in a studio in the same city under painter and literature professor Rebecca Harp. Later, she has attended courses at Florence Academy of Art in Florence and Gothenburg under brilliant masters such as Hege Haugen, former director of Florence Academy of Art Gothenburg and pupil of Odd Nerdrum, Andreas Birath, present director of Florence Academy of Art Gothenburg, Jordan Sokhol, former director of Florence Academy New York and Eran Webber, Florence Academy of Art Florence. The works are mainly philosophical, political and mythological in their Expression and a Depth to Contemporary Realism is maintained and influenced by painters such as the French realist Courbet, the Catalan born modernist Picasso, the Italian chiaro-scuro painter Caravaggio, the English Prerafaelite Millais, the Norwegian expressionist Edvard Munch and the monumental Sculptor Gustav Vigeland among others.
What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?
“I was born in Oslo, the capital of Norway. I was influenced as a child by the Indians in North America, believing that a true life would consist of shooting arrows and know how to ride a horse. I read classical literature from early age and later found a profound interest in Philosophical Ideas. I learnt how to write poems as an eight year old, trying to perform them for every patient parent in the block. I did not have that early success, but I became aware of my capacity to write and perform. I liked school as a child, and had many great friends with whom I would practice to play the clarinet or sing the opera. I always chose creative courses at school, such as ceramics and photo, arts and crafts. I made clothes myself after old models from Burda Style, finding my favourite patterns from the 70`s. I bought my first sewing machine as an 18 year old. I learnt how to draw classical after graduating from University, first in a studio, later in academies. I left for Florence Italy in 2002, where I copied old masters and practiced the Bargue method. I learnt how to paint still-life, portraits and figures. I have had numerous solo shows, every one of them speaking their own story as if they were novels told in paintings and drawings, connected by a larger Philosophical Theme. I was accepted to London art Biennale in 2021 and after that exhibited in large parts of Europe, such as the Biennale of Cannes, Biennale of Florence, Rome, but also in New York and South Korea.”
What inspires you?
“I am easily inspired, sometimes it might be a problem, because it also takes some time to accomplish the idea and put it into life. I work a lot, but still I often feel that I lack time and possibility to finish my projects. There are lots of painters that I admire. In my hometown, there was this original guy that everybody told me was an artist, one day I followed him into a pub to ask him if he took apprentices. He gave me his atelier address and I stayed with him for five years. He learnt me old renaissance techniques, draperies and perspective. He had this gigantic library of books. I could read whatever I wanted, always learning something new. I found that absolutely amazing.
There are a lot of painters that have deeply influenced me such as Gustave Courbet because of his tremendous power to perform and show his work, even when he was not wanted as a realist painter, he put up a shed and made an exhibition with the title "realism." I like that kind of spirit, I find it deliberating. As a teenager I loved Edvard Munch and I think it was the best gift ever, when I got his Biography on the Life Cycle as a fourteen year old from my parents. I thought he was a genius, and one of my early portraits was based on one of his most famous works the "Madonna". Later, I studied Dali, and travelled to Barcelona and surroundings just to see where he came from and why he would be the surrealist he was. I went to Figueres and saw the museum and then out to Cadeques to see his summerhouse. I said hello to the standing icebear in the hallway with jewellery around his neck, and sat down in the kitchen where the idea for the soft clocks came around. Today, amazingly enough, I have exhibited with one of his works "Essence of Time" in a Gallery on Manhattan New York. I am also inspired by artists such as for instance the musician Laurie Anderson that have creative and poetic performances on larger sound scapes. She is probably one of the artists that has influenced me the most as a performative artist. I just love the way she speaks on top of music, it is like a vocal piece of poetry.”
What themes do you pursue? Is there an underlying message in your work?
“I do not know if there is an underlying message in my work, but I am aware that we do have a subconscious life and we are often present on different levels. I did for many years use writing in the surface of my works, as if the words could connect the image and hopefully evoke understanding as well as complexity and wonder. Many of my works are deeply heavy and undressed to an extent of deconstruction. I sometimes feel sad about this dimension in my works. Life is complicated. The paintings touches this complexion enlightening themes such as life, death, sexuality, relations, love, hatred, conflicts etcetera. My performances are often connecting political challenges with a performative expression, trying to emphasize some of the facts the we often strive to ignore.”
“I am easily inspired, sometimes it might be a problem.”
How would you describe your work?
“My work is often figurative, mostly made in oil. I like collage also, and do a lot of sketches to learn about shapes and make greater ideas of a theme or composition. I like to mix colours and learnt early that the colours come from different places, the pigments lasts short or long, some colours can be mixed and others would look dirty. When I was younger, I had this idea that I would try out glazing from the early Dutch and Belgian painters. I tried to mix complementary colours, that I read was the idea of the French painter Delacroix, he meant that the shades would be complementary from the light. I found it very hard, but interesting to try out. Or to emphasise sfumato and see if Leonardo was right about everything going into blue in a distance. Today I am more expressive and often decide very fast and try to stay that way so to have a certain freshness or even innocence or vulnerability in my work. I hope I am able to do that. Life can be fun, but it is also really a challenge to most people.”
Which artists influence you most?
“Today, I like artists such as Anselm Kiefer, I think he is the most interesting contemporary Artist alive. I align with all his works as to a master you just have to listen to in fear of not learning what would be possible to do. He has this greatness and bravery to mix all kinds of medias on to a canvas. Even when it falls off the surface, he will continue to carry it into the museum and hang it on the wall. The first time I saw his bookshelf in Astrup Fearnley in Oslo, I nearly gave up my art, it was beyond belief! It weighted several tons, and every book was made from lead, measuring close to a meter. The shelf itself was made from iron. The titles Eufrat and Tigris, the first two rivers in civilization, were written on metal plates.
Later, I went to Berlin to see him once more, and the reference to total destruction was so clear and sad in the plaster dipped children's dresses glued to the paintings hanging in Hamburger Bahnof Museum in Berlin. In the documentary "Over Your Cities Grass will Grow" he speaks about his experience as a post war child, the sadness, but also creativity that arises from the ruins of a bombed out Germany. Female artists that I find interesting is Frida Kahlo, due to her extreme living condition and self awareness. Seeing her paintings in MOMA New York, so small and so precise. It was like holding a piece of very thin glass in your hands, I felt so touched and impressed about her exactness and use of colours. The paintings were like fingerprints from a life. Her voice is so unique. I remember the first time I read about her, I was not very old, and it made a devastating impression, she would tell about how she lost her virginity in a bus accident being penetrated by a metal brace from the bus, covered in gold from a small box of dust escaping the casket of a gold smith placed in front of her. Her scream was breaking the air. The accident lead to lifetime infertility.”
What is your creative process like?
“When I was younger, I just started out on bigger projects without thinking, working my way through it. Today, I am planning a bit more, but I often feel that what you do intuitively is the best work, even though the anatomy or size or perspective might not be right. It has to do with the story told, it has its own voice. It does not necessarily connect to the world as it is, but as it develops, or as an impression of something that we may share and think into.”
What is an artist’s role in society and how do you see that evolving?
“I find this question very complicated and difficult to answer. I have used many years of my life trying to debate issues that I feel like changing, believing that the rebel and the opponent have a real important impact in a democratic society. I find this harder to believe in today than I did ten years ago. I do not know why, but maybe I learnt that, even though Voltaire might have said these famous words in the 1700: “I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to death your right to say it.” It does not seem to be the case in the real world, but I hope it to may be this way. I try to respect different meanings myself and I like people to oppose me because I feel I learn from it.”
