SUMMER CAMP - Olivier Kenneybrew

Silkscreen print, edition of 50, signed and numbered by artist, unframed

Destination: Näsets Marcusgård, Sweden

Date: 5-12 September, 2021

Jaunt #076

approx. 27.5"h x 19.75"w, 70cm x 50cm

"I'm a Mediterranean guy so visiting Northern Sweden is quite the opposite from what I'm used to. I was looking forward to being surprised at the Summer Camp, to meet creative people, share my knowledge and to learn from others. Even though we all met for the first time, and only spent a week together, I think we were a really great team together, with great new friendships formed, that already feel like long time friends.

I am used to working alone in my studio so it was interesting to change that up and be together with other people. We were able to exchange thoughts and talk different techniques and approaches to work. We are all painters, yet very different in our ways of thinking about painting. Being in an open-air studio with endless creative possibilities also made me think differently. Having so much space available to us, I wanted to take that into account and use it as a playground and as I like manual work it became obvious to me that I had to make a sculpture with the possibilities presented. This famous quote from Antoine Lavoisier came to me: "Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed". With that ethos in mind, I dismantled an old abandoned shack on the property and transformed it into a sculpture. I created a main form that I placed in the middle of a field and two smaller secondary forms that I placed on either side of the main sculpture. At the end of the stay, I set the whole work on fire as a celebration (ceremony) to close this stage in our lives, this journey in the middle of the Swedish countryside.

Aside from the sculpture I also had the time to make several drawings inspired by the exterior and interior environment of our living space. I think that these works marked the beginnings of my work in oil paint. Since the Summer Camp, I have evolved in my painting, I have gone from acrylic painting to oil painting on canvas and have developed a more narrative painting. The print that I created represents the new environment that was mine during the Summer Camp in Furudal, the architecture of the traditional Swedish farms, the forest and its lakes. All in all, this week, the place and most importantly the new friendships formed, have had a big effect on my work."

-Olivier Kenneybrew