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JACOB BROSTRUP
Jacob Brostrups paintings are a valuable supplement to the eternaI artistic struggle to create paintings worth seeing. His paintings call our attention because they have a built-in will, dynamic and energy that change the normal expectations of how a painting can be.
Jacob Brostrup started to paint in stripes three years ago. He was inspired by the ancient technique by which you divide the canvas into squares and then paint one square at a time. The technique makes it possible to enlarge a sketch or a photo to a much larger canvas, as for example 5 x 5 cm can end as 20 x 20 cm in the final painting. By this, the artist can concentrate on painting the squares and at the same time keep the general overview. He cuts the painting in slices or in stripes, and by doing this he gets an extra instrument to experiment with the colours. The interesting part arises in the experiments with the multiplicity of colours with which the motif can be created, without it falling apart.
Just as Monet, Cezanne ond Andy Warhol were fascinated by the light's influence on the motif, so is Jacob Brostrup. Cezanne often painted the mountain Mont Sainte-Victoire during morning light, later in the afternoon light and last in the light of the night, and in the same way Jacob Brostrup finds it exciting to challenge the experience of the motif in different light-settings.
In the paintings each stripe forms part of the motif, and all together they form the painting. Jacob Brostrup compares it to the act of going to and from work each day following the exact same route; you will pass the same paths, roads and houses every day. You only see them in glimpses, but you are still capaple of creating a whole image of those glimpses.
Jacob Brostrup underlines the speed and the glimpses of our surroundings by painting with oil and no drier added. In this way he can paint a whole stripe in the painting without it drying up. To make it look like the painting is created with fast strokes of a brush, he ends each stripe with one broad brushstroke, taking it from one side of the canvas to the other. By doing this, part of the details disappear, but at the same time it creates new combinations of colours, which in return inspires the following stripes. Jacob Brostrup intents to achieve an impression of spontaneity and coincidence, in line with P.S. Krøyer, the Danish Skagen artist, who often finished a painting with a couple of intense brushstrokes to add some dynamic into the painting.
But it only seems coincidence. The starting point could be photos from family holidays in the 60's, or it could be contemporary urbane settings. The central focus can change from very small elements to the broad skyline.
Jacob Brostrup is not comparable to any other artist. He is one of a kind. No frills, but at the same time a personality whom we will follow with great pleasure in the years to come.
Thorkild NB Nielsen