Martin Oluf Thaulow works in a variety of media. Expanding from his studies in drawing and painting to embrace photography, video and installation work, Martin has amassed a plentiful body of work. This author first saw his work at SOFA expo 2009 at Navy Pier. The ensuing interview about his collaborative work with Stine Diness Mikkelson revealed the variety and extent of his recent work. A provocative and questioning spirit infuses his diverse works with theater, music and mixed media, provoking audiences to laugh, to cry and to wonder. With a style that clips weighted moments and strings them together into dynamic narratives of universal experience, Martin’s work embodies the “new media” concept.
He explores the human perception and tests possibilities of combining different media, always with a genuine signature and expression as his chief aim. Continuing to explore the traditional subjects of portrait, still life and landscape in oil and watercolor, Martin reveals tenderness for his subjects. With his work, The Day Before The Harvest (Bornholmian landscape), Martin’s affection for the landscape, awareness of light and season enrich the dynamics of his brush stroke and the composition of trees and rows of grain.
The Day Before The Harvest (Bornholmian landscape), oil on canvas, 2008/ 09.Photo by Martin Oluf Thaulow.
With his portraiture, he has incorporated video in a series of works called film-paintings. “The Film-Paintings consist of two paintings and video/ film-sequences of approx. 5 min shown on a flat screen. Headphones are attached to the installation so that the spectator can hear the sound.” These include universal themes, Age, the study of his grandmother and a joyful celebration of new life in a work featuring his pregnant wife, Life.
Diagram for film-painting display.
Martin expands on the inspirations and format of the partnered works: “The film-paintings Life and Age were made for each other. I started with Age, [which] is a portrait of my grandmother. It deals with universal issues such as death, the disappearing times, memories, aging, did we get to do what we wanted to [do?]…my grandmother was getting old and I knew she did not have much time left. She was 97 at that time. I wanted to spend some time with her, [and] my parents had a large archive of slides from her life, so I decided to live with her for 3 days looking at slides, filming, sketching and see what would happen … just being there. I analyzed the film material and sketches and found my motives for the two paintings and after finishing the film I painted the paintings. It took about 8 months to create Age. … As you can experience in Age, I put my grandmother in her grave, before she died in real life. She died shortly after her [hundredth] birthday. It was... [required to form a sense of closure within the story line].”
Photo of Age, video and paintings.
Martin continues: “Life came as my wife got pregnant with our first child. It made great sense to make it as an answer or beginning to Age. They make a great contrast to each other: The beginning of life versus the end of life. They have a physical impact on each other. When seeing Life you get lifted and feel the joy, eagerness and bursting of new life. When coming from that to Age, death and sorrow feels even stronger as the body remembers Life. Age and Life are meant to be exhibited side by side.”
Life, oil on canvas, 2006.
“When making art that can cause such strong reactions I feel that I have reached my goal: To make people feel!” This provocative and visceral aspect of Martin’s work marks its universal appeal and emotive content.
Video still part of the film painting, Life, 2006.
With works like Falling Water, an installation featuring the glass work of Stine Diness Mikkelsen, video and sound, Martin’s explorations of the Northern European landscape, weather and themes of life such as love expand upon the studies of light and land in his painting. Incorporating sound recorded at a visit to Niagra Falls and video taken onsite at Bornholm, Sweden, the installation is an encompassing space. Audience participation occurs through looking up at the visual and sculptural form of Stine’s falling water droplets, walking across the circular puddle of video featuring a variety of iconic scenes, and the auditory immersion via speakers or headphones within the sounds of water falling, a fly buzzing, falling coins and the subtle sounds of the landscape, such as lapping waves.
Falling Water, installation photo with artists, Martin Oluf Thaulow, video, and Stine Diness Mikkelsen, glass and mixed media, at SOFA expo 2009. Photo by J.L. Kronika.
The circular format of the video is inspired by the fact that: “If you film a falling drop at 10.000 frames per second you can see it is perfectly round. The round forms in the glass and the round film on the floor will call on each other and make a vertical movement when moving the eye from the glass object on to the floor and back again… making them interact. Also the round film format has the symbolism of the circle and represents infinity, eternity, wholeness, femininity and so on.”
Falling Water, installation photo, Martin Oluf Thaulow, video, and Stine Diness Mikkelsen, glass and mixed media, at Westgate Studios. Photo by David Lindsay.
This work developed out of meeting Stine and seeing her working process during a workshop. The Glass Context 2008 workshop, which Thaulow led with artists Karen Lisa Salamon, a Danish leading ethnographer, and Jocelyne Prince, artist and Assistant Professor at RISD, focused on global identity and identity. Using video as a tool, the collaborative workshops set up conventions and made participants produce small sequences within these conventions to be analyzed and viewed in small groups afterwards.
Link to vimeo of Falling Water: http://www.thaulow.dk/9659/FALLING%20WATER
Martin speaks of how he came to work in such diverse media and to participate in collaboration: “Painting is my choice of media…to work towards new directions and draw on the new inspiration and challenges of the surrounding environment…[requires] work[ing] on the development of a more articulate pictorial language and …the use of traditional painting combined with … other medias.” He continues: “We live in an age of technology that urges us to work on fine arts interaction with other media. In my quest I've been experimenting with film/ video and theatre works, closely together with traditional painting and vice versa.”
When asked about how he arrived at the format of painting paired with video, Martin said: “My work with the film-painting is enriching both my paintings as [well as] my ability to work with film, and the other collaborations. [Whatever the artist’s media, it] is the same language we speak. I make a lot of collaborations with different media to search and learn about this acclaimed language, other media and my self. My separate work with the different media, [such as oils, watercolor, drawing, video, set-design, installation and collaborations with other artists is] connected as [they] all are within the visual form [or] idiom by the mutual or universal ideas and use of theory. All of the above mentioned media, [aim for] construction, contrast, color, composition, proportion, tones, structure, size, time, [and] atmosphere. My transition from the formative training in drawing and painting into the use of other media has been in an on going process during the past 5 years. Accidental meetings with the right people, at the right time and place slowly [piqued] my interest [in] the mutual idiom and made me dedicated [to work] with it.
Stills from When the Ship Arrived, photos by Martin Oluf Thaulow. (20\30)
Some of the various works in this idiom include: When The Ship Arrived, an avante-garde project combining music with performance and projected visual landscapes.
Martin got into working with musicians when a friend made a project, in which he invited visual artists to make music videos for his new album. The album was released with an additional DVD. From that DVD, the Harp Song and my film Life inspired other musicians to ask for music videos to their music and from there on it has been growing. Including work with guerrilla ferry boat concerts by SKILLA including the recording of her song, Stranded.
Link to SKILLA’s Stranded: http://www.thaulow.dk/9477/MUSIC%20VIDEO/%20OTHER
Martin’s experience in “traditional theatre [includes] the set-, costume and light design for the play Der Müll, die Stadt und der Tod by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Martin describes it as “extremely challenging… as [he] had to fit in 17 actors in a fairly small space. The play is interesting[ly] written and it challenged [Martin’s] fantasy and creativity … [He] created a space of monochrome changing colors (blue, orange and white), a reflecting steel floor and then placed a great variety of ornamentation in the costumes and the few pieces of furniture used in the play. Light was very low, diffuse and coming from one side designed to create an effect of chiaroscuro… paint[ing] with the light. The director, Jakob Schjödt, had to instruct very precisely, where the actors placed themselves."
In January, Falling Water will be modified even more as it expands into an installation using 3 separate rooms in the gallery space. The upcoming exhibit January 15, 2009 to January 15Th - February 15Th, 2010 is at A Gallery, located at Esplanaden 1b, DK - 1263 CPH K, Denmark. The upcoming Rimbaud Association/Collaboration exhibition will feature Martin’s work-in-progress Art film/ video installation-project My Generation, from May 21Th until June 27th, 2010. The gallery Rundetaarn, is located at Købmagergade 52A, 1150 KBH K – Denmark. Rimbaud is an association of seven to sixteen Nordic artists, and Martin is currently acting chair. The My Generation work-in-progress is expected to carry on over the next three to four years, beginning with this exposure in 2010. A Danish television station is currently documenting progress on Martin’s large-scale (200 x 130 cm) landscape painting, due to be completed in mid-February. Watch Martin’s website for details on where this painting will be unveiled and the work-in-progress on My Generation .
For more information:
Martin Olaf Thaulow’s website: http://www.thaulow.dk/9757/HOME
Visit the web site: WHEN THE SHIP ARRIVED (in Danish) http://www.skibet.mono.net/9352/
The Fassbinder production Der Müll, die Stadt und der Tod
http://www.thaulow.dk/9963/FASSBINDER
The Upcoming exhibit of Falling Water: http://www.agallery.dk/9705/Exhibitions
My Generation work-in-progress http://www.rundetaarn.dk/engelsk/index.html(currently no English translation)
The association Rimbaud:
www.rimbaud.dk (currently no English translation)
Martin at Rimbaud: http://www.rimbaud.dk/8872/Martin%20Thaulow
(currently no English translation)
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