Interview with Per-Inge Isheden — Contemporary Art Curator Magazine

Per-Inge Isheden was born in a small countryside town in the middle of Sweden. He started painting while still a child, inspired by his mother who was an amateur artist.He studied at the Konstfackskolan in Stockholm 1957-61.

After working 13 years as an art teacher, 1961-74, he started his career as a professional artist by creating a science fiction cartoon for adults.
As a professional artist he has regularly showed his works at galleries and art fairs in Stockholm and other places in Sweden, in Berlin, Copenhagen and London. 2018 he will exhibit in Vienna.

In recent years he has become increasingly well-known, especially on the internet and in Stockholm where he finds many of his motives. He has been described as a "romantic with his feet firmly on the pavement". Admirers of his art have noted his preference of winter and bad weather motives, dusk moods with a mixture of disappearing daylight and neon light effects. They also comment on the sensuality of his nudes and the stunning effect of his unorthodox portraits of August Strindberg and old time super stars such as John Lennon, Marilyn Monroe and Jimi Hendrix.

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Could you please introduce yourself and tell us how you started in the arts? and your first experience in art-making?

Painting has always been my passion, something I couldn’t live without. Since I first saw my mother pressing from the tubes those wonderful brilliant glancing colours and mixing them on her pallet. I literally wanted to eat paint!

From my teens I painted on all my free time. During my years in the art school also on Saturdays and Sundays. During my years as teacher on weekends and summer holidays. Then at last full time.

I started mixing the rather conventional painting techniques I learned in the art school, with brush and knife. Then successively adding dripping, splashing and even pouring paint on my canvases. I discovered the possibilities of transforming an old landscape painting into a portrait, a pair into the back of a woman.

I looked for inspiration everywhere, not within art but in magazines, comic books, illustrations, old prints, odd road signs, whatever. The colour combination on a big truck, the colour pattern on a fish, the red of a traffic sign.

That chaotic mixture slowly turned into my very personal expression, where I for every new situation choose different parts of my repertoire and my very special way of thinking and solving problems.

How would you describe yourself and your artwork?

I live in my paintings, painting is my life.

Where do you get your inspiration from?

Everything around me can inspire me. Women are an important inspiration.

What emotions do you hope the viewers experience when looking at your art?

I hope to draw viewer into my paintings, I want them to feel what I feel.

When do you know that an artwork is finished?

I don´t. I work till the panting feels finished. Sometimes I feel after a while I must work more on it. Sometimes I realise I should have stopped earlier...