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Hawk Alfredson | |
|---|---|
| Born | Nils Håkan Anders Alfredsson (1960-09-24)September 24, 1960 (age 64) Örebro, Sweden |
| Nationality | Swedish |
| Education | Fetco's School of Fine Arts and Pernby's Målarskola, Stockholm, Sweden |
| Known for | Painting |
| Movement | (Pan)surrealism, Magic Realism, Symbolist Art |
Hawk Alfredson (bornNils Håkan Anders Alfredsson on September 24, 1960) is an international artist known for symbolic, surrealistic oil paintings with a Northern European quality in tone and method. Alfredson's paintings do not fall into a single category but instead cross over and combineSurrealism andMagic Realism as well asSymbolist andFantastic art; a strong emphasis on classical painting technique is a major feature of his work.[1]
Alfredson is a "Pansurrealist" according toTerrance Lindall in his essayWhat's New in the Surreal World?[2]
Alfredson was born in Örebro, Sweden, to a Finnish mother and a Swedish father. Early in life, Alfredson's parents recognized their young son's talent and, after Alfredson announced at age seven that he would become an artist, his father taught the young boy the basics of oil painting.[3][4]
In his early teens, Alfredson was submitting caricatures and cartoons to Swedish newspapers and magazines; the Swedish edition ofMad Magazine was one of the first to publish Alfredson's images. Sixteen-year-old Alfredson first exhibited his work professionally in a group show in Sölvesborg at Nicolaigården. The same year, he left home to attend Fetco's School of Fine Arts (now Konstskolan i Stockholm) and later took advanced classes in formal painting at Pernby's Målarskola in Stockholm.[5][6]
In 1980, Alfredson sold his first paintingUFO Sverige Aktuellt to a Swedish magazine; it subsequently was shown at an exhibition of UFO artwork in the Köpings Museum; the commissioned work depicted a UFO in the sky with two aliens standing below.[6]
During the 1980s, Alfredson lived, worked, and exhibited in Stockholm, participating in several art shows including Stockholm's Fria Konstmassa (Stockholm's Free Art Fair), juried by radio producer Peter R. Meyer. His work was also exhibited at Svarta Månen (Black Moon), a bookstore and arts center that featured concerts and poetry readings that were broadcast from an in-house radio station.[3] From 1985 to 1987, Alfredson organized and catalogued artworks for Liljevalchs Konsthall, one of Stockholm's contemporary art museums.
Alfredson arrived in New York City in 1995 with a solo exhibition at the Limner Gallery in SoHo.[7] Within a few months, the artist had earned the title "The darling of the New York underground scene" with artwork in twenty shows during the first year after his arrival.[7][8]
Alfredson's art career was given a boost in 1998 whenThelma Golden of the Whitney Museum curated one of his pieces into the juried show "Art as Spectacle" at theKatonah Museum. The exhibition, labeled the year's "most prestigious" by theNew York Times, was considered a tri-state event.[9][10] During the same year, while exhibiting in a gallery in Brooklyn, Alfredson met photographer Mia Hanson who later became his wife. In 1998, the couple lived and worked first in California, then in Stockholm, and in 2001 returned to Manhattan to take up residence in theHotel Chelsea.[11][12]
For the next decade, Alfredson and his wife lived in New York's Chelsea Hotel where Alfredson produced and displayed as many as fifty pieces at a time in the hotel's stairwell and hallways.[13][14]
While being interviewed by Abel Ferrara in the documentary "Chelsea on the Rocks," Alfredson told of a hotel resident who had apsychotic break and slashed several of Hawk's paintings.[11] Alfredson said he had no animosity toward the man, stating the documentary's memorable words, "We all have our scars . . .he gave my paintings a couple of scars."[15] Hawk and his wife appeared on part of the "Hotel Secrets" series that marked the restructuring of the Hotel Chelsea and removal of the artistic element.[16] The couple left in 2010 along with other long-time residents.
Since Alfredson's work often depicts images taken from "the strange visionary periods between sleeping and waking,"[17] the artist is associated with the Pansurrealism movement.[2] His use of many motifs imbued with mystical symbolism also places his work into several categories such asMagic Realism andSymbolist Art.[6]
Alfredson works almost exclusively with oil paints, using detailed brushwork, multiple layers of glazing, and a northern European palette—classically rendering images with an emphasis on craftsmanship and composition.[14] Dream-like environments and people form the basis of his representational work, with symbols and detailed patterns—"circlings" and complexFibonacci spiral motifs—dominant in the non-objective paintings.[6]
Although Alfredson's artwork displays a variety of motifs and themes, many of the images can be loosely grouped into five major categories: frontal portraits such as those found in theDream Ambassador series; solitary standing or floating figures often surrounded by mystical objects and symbols; large "swarm paintings" which show nightmarish, chaotic scenes; inorganic and organic objects with otherworldly, numinous qualities; and abstract paintings depicting spirals, circlings, and complex patterns.[12]
Representative samples of the five categories include:
During an interview in a New York gallery Hawk stated, "I want to transport the viewer into an altered state of consciousness. . . perceiving the images filtered through their own reality."[6]
When in art school in Stockholm, Hawk Alfredson was greatly influenced by the artwork of surrealistsSalvador Dalí andRené Magritte; Alfredson considers some of Dali's work remains "fascinating on many levels" but has not remained a major influence.[6]Old Masters who influenced Alfredson's early artistic development includeJohannes Vermeer,Jan van Eyck, andGeorges de La Tour. Alfredson's artwork also shows the influence of Swiss Symbolist painterArnold Böcklin. Of contemporary artists, Alfredson identifiesOdd Nerdrum as having had a deep and lasting impact: "I think he's one of the best living artists on this planet."[6]
Alfredson readily acknowledges the early influence of historical figures such as Visionary artistsHieronymus Bosch andWilliam Blake or Symbolist artistsKarel Vítězslav Mašek andEdvard Munch. When in his early 20s, Alfredson came upon a painting byAlberto Giacometti and "it truly mesmerized me and put me in a dreamlike, hypnotic state of mind where time and space disappeared.[3]
The films ofAndrei Tarkovsky,Ingmar Bergman,Alain Resnais, andCarl Theodor Dreyer also helped strengthen the emerging artist's vision. Written works such asGustav Meyrink'sThe Golem as well as hallucinatory stories ofCarolos Castaneda,Zoran Zivkovic, and Hector Gramme have influenced Alfredson's artistic vision.
Alfredson's works have been exhibited across New York and in the cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Boca Raton, Boston, and Baltimore. Exhibitions include venues such as the Katonah Museum, the Prefectural Museum in Tokyo, New York's Alternative Museum, Australia's Regional Art Museum in Orange NSW, and Nordiska Museet in Stockholm, Sweden.[5]
Recent New York exhibitions include:
Alfredson's images have been selected as cover and insert illustrations for several international works of fiction.[5]
Alfredson's artwork has appeared on numerous album covers[5] and their discs and interiors.
Alfredson's artwork has also appeared in films includingOcean's Thirteen,Mystery Men, andI Am Legend.[5][20]
The documentaryChelsea on the Rocks, directed by Abel Ferrara in 2008, features Alfredson speaking about his experiences while living and painting at New York's Hotel Chelsea.[15]
Other films featuring Alfredson's art include:
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