Rolf Hanson

Rolf Hanson has been a national Nordic treasure since his debut in the 1980s, exploring predominantly formal qualities within his art practice. His paintings and printed series are often semi-abstract—for example, he has created gestural portraits swimming in pigment and illustrated a staircase in series—and focus on the interaction between surface and space. Although his color palette began with milky blacks and browns, his later work has integrated warmer colors that consistently throb and vibrate. These dense, prismatic juxtapositions frazzle the viewer’s perception of depth and seek to uncover forms by way of perceptual imagination, resembling the Fauves and particularly Henri Matisse’s penchant for a pronounced brushstroke. Hanson’s work donates Nordic melancholy to his romantic yet complex canvases.

Hanson has exhibited extensively at galleries in Sweden, as well as institutions such as Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Konsthallen Hishult, Sweden, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo, Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art, Malmö, and Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany. In 1982, he received a residency at MoMA PS 1 in New York. He also represented Sweden at the Venice Biennale in 1988 in the first Nordic Pavilion and won first prize in the Carnegie Art Award.