Viloplatsen

The painting depicts a young man lying face down in the early morning tide. In minute translations of dark and light paint, attention is focused on the liminal spaces between night and day, sea and shore, and life and death. An ambiguous narrative is open for the viewer’s interpretation. Is the young man a washed up sailor, fisherman or merchant seaman? The label on the young man’s trousers or jeans gives the scene a high street, contemporary time-line but it is not clear whether he has come from sea or shore. Or indeed whether he is alive or dead. In the hazy, ethereal atmosphere beyond the central figure, vague forms suggest possibilities both mundane and mythical: a cargo ship or sailboat; a shipwreck or pier; a swimmer or mermaid. 

The painting of sun behind haze – the morning’s calm after a nights storm - is both carefully and freely executed and gives the body held in space a feeling of suspension. The figure’s pose suggests abandonment and release: a new life – or death - free from all previous stresses and pains. The title of the painting ‘Viloplatsen’ is a Swedish term that translates into English as ‘resting place’. The painting itself translates into multiple meanings: a contemporary take on a classic folk tale; a depiction of a lonely end of death and despair; the suggestion of a possible afterlife; the transformative power of abandonment and release; and the eternal rebirth of new life in the sea.