Art reviews

A love letter to freedoms pictures

Of all people, there are a few who leave traces behind them; of all people, there are those who want to communicate with us through what we call art. It is through these creative individuals that we see our own and others lives as if in a mirror. These are the thoughts that come to me when I see Hans O. Bergmans paintings.

Freedom lives in his hand (or we could say his heart). Truthfully, Its not often that I have seen a painting, traces on a canvas, that conveys such immeasurably great freedom as is found in his pictures. Hans O. Bergman takes freedoms. He attacks the canvas with absolute power and sensitivity, and most of all with freedom. It is a freedom that can make the observer happy; a physical freedom.

There is art that has a natural beginning and a determined end – nothing wrong with that type of painting. But then there are artists like (Hans O. Bergman) who have decided that the only thing in life that is worth anything is freedom of spirit, expressed through painting for example, through pictures.

Mostly, I see the white surfaces in his pictures that are illuminated with a glow and a pureness that convey joy. I did not know that white could be so white and I did not know that paintings could convey joy through a colour that is permitted to shine in complete and total freedom and joy.

It would never occur to me to try to “interpret” Hans O. Bergman’s paintings. These pictures should be experienced in the same way as a glass of pure, cold spring water. It should be enjoyed, not narrated. His painting has a freedom that it would be shameful to try to capture and pin down in a prison of words, but it is possible write a few words about a painting and allow these words to become a love letter.

So I am sending this love letter to Hans O. Bergman’s painting. im sending my feelings from a sense of gratefulness that I have seen a painting which, via his hand, has made my eyes listen.

Stig Åke Stålnacke

International Art Critical Association, IACA