Henrik Uldalen’s paintings are beautiful and evoke emotion. His style is utterly recognisable (unless you’ve been living under a rock), due to the fact that they are an undeniable Instagram sensation. The pictures of Uldalen’s art online, however captivating they are, do no justice to the real pieces where the craftsmanship and talent behind the final result is visible whether you are lover of art or not.

Currently on view at JD Malat Gallery in London’s Mayfair is Henrik Uldalen’s newest series entitled ‘Lethe’. ‘Lethe’ is Henrik Uldalen’s second solo show with the gallery, following the great success of his first exhibition entitled ‘Metanoia’. Using an easy-on-the-eyes pink as the string that connects all his newest pieces, and as a metaphor for how humans have the tendency to reflect on the past through a rose-tinted veil, Henrik’s new body of work touches on themes of modern-day politics whilst continuing to explore the darker facets of human emotion through his turmoiled figures.

Blowout Magazine had the pleasure of chatting to Henrik about his new exhibition, his inspirations, way of working, how he got into painting, and what the future may hold for his artistic development. Throughout the conversation, it became evident that Henrik Uldalen’s talent comes from the depths of expression, and that he uses painting not only as a form of language but also as a way through which he can reflect and process his past. To learn more about the artist’s process, read the full exclusive interview below.

Could you please talk me through the exhibition?

So we have a ton of portraits and figures slowly dissolving in a pink veil of lost memory, and that’s the concept of the exhibition. It’s Lethe, which is one of the five rivers of the underworld in Greek mythology and it’s known for being the river of oblivion and forgetfulness. It’s an exhibition where I am quite subtly talking about the collective society’s failing memory and how this affects our current state of politics and life because we have such a subjective take on history.

You said the words failing memory, how would you define that a bit further? Why is memory failing?

Well, we have recorded history and we have collective memory, and collective memory which can be remembered by whole countries, but it might not be the full truth behind things, and things change over time to fit an agenda for maybe a politician or the country that we live in. So this is just faded memories, well, allegories of faded memories in society.

Pink plays an important role in the entire series, can you talk to me a bit more about that?

Yes, well when you think back in time, think back on your childhood memories, it’s all rose tinted and you can’t remember all the bad things happening at the time, it’s just an idealised idea of what you actually experienced. So behind all this beautiful pink light, there was a lot of unpleasantness, there was a lot of stress or whatever you had in your life, it’s all now covered by this rose tint. You’ll see in many of the paintings it’s all rosy but there are clusters of unpleasantness in the background just painted over.

Henrik Uldalen, Clasp, 2019 — Henrik Uldalen, *Clasp*, 2019

The models that you paint, are these people that you know? Or do they come from your imagination?

Right, so, all the models are models that I pick online and I reach out to get them to pose for me, take photos and I use that as a reference. But every painting is a self portrait, really.

Can you elaborate on that?

So every piece of art, I mean every piece of art ever created by an artist is a self portrait in a way, there’s always going to be an image created by a person living in that specific time and it’s a product of that time. But, especially for me, it’s always been about expressing myself and I’ve been trying to work with ideas and emotions that I am unable to deal with otherwise and all these people are just projections of me.

I see that you use quite a lot of layering in your paintings, what’s your process behind that? How do you decide how far to go into it, and when it’s time to stop?

It’s interesting because this exhibition has been completely different than any of the other ones that I’ve ever done. Before I would start on one end of the panel and just paint my way across the surface, and finish it off. And now, it’s called alla prima, just painting everything in one. This time around I’ve gone way more intuitively into it, splashing some turps [turpentines] on top of it, pushing something back, bring some details back in, and pouring paint on top of that again, and you know just working freely with it. It’s been challenging, and horrifying, and a little bit fun.

Why has it been challenging and horrifying?

Because you don’t know where you’re going to end up. I usually have a pretty strict plan. This time around, even the reference photos, this time around I’ve been like ‘ok I don’t really like this photo, I’m going to paint it anyways, see where it goes, maybe it will turn out well! Who knows?’.

Henrik Uldalen, Fusion, 2019 — Henrik Uldalen, *Fusion*, 2019

So you’ve been a bit more intuitive and free with this series?

Yes, and it has been quite challenging, I am a control freak. I have so little control in my life, and painting has always been one of the few things that is sharp, it’s precise, that I can control it, and now I’m going off the rails with this one and it’s been challenging.

Why is that performative aspect important to the overall theme that you’re trying to explore in your exhibition?

It’s about the zeitgeist of today, it seems like most countries are trying to separate themselves from everyone else, trying to find old glory and focus on themselves and in my opinion it will lead to nothing good. It’s about history as well, and history is repeating itself, we’ve seen this many times before.

Will you continue this exploration further after the exhibition is over, or will you focus on a separate idea and a separate concept you would like to explore?

Yes, I will definitely work on this for a while longer. I feel it didn’t really crystallise for me until the last 3 weeks into the exhibition, like ‘ok wow this is what I’m doing’ and now I am fully devoted to it so definitely need to do more in it, but I have notoriously short focus and I get bored quickly so I move on quickly as well, which requires quite a bit of patience and trust from both gallery and collectors. I’m very lucky to have some people still follow me!

Do you draw inspiration from other artists, or other forms of art?

I would say that I’m generally not very inspired by other artists, especially painters, I don’t see paintings ever, I’m just not interested because I’m working full time with painting myself. If I am taking inspiration from anyone it’s usually from other mediums that I don’t know anything about technically: movies, series, music. For me it’s just about experiencing it, and what I feel and whenever I see a painting I’m literally going 2cm away from the painting, looking at the technical brushstrokes and the composition, and the colour combinations, and that’s not what the painting is about, but I can’t see past it because I’m a painter myself.

Would you consider experimenting with mediums you don’t know much about in the future, like film or music?

Yes absolutely, I want to get into more sculptures, I want to do all kinds of stuff, but I’m also afraid of losing the passion for it. I mean, not losing the passion for it, but I enjoy you know watching movies and series, and listening to music and I might feel differently about it if I make it myself. But I do feel like any medium I would work in it would still be me, and it would still feel natural, apart from me being bad at it for a long time, but I’m more than open to work with different mediums.

You mentioned that if you start using another medium and exploring, you might end up feeling different about it. Where do you stand with painting, how come you went into the medium of painting and where did it all come from?

I’ve always loved drawing, doing art when I was young. Every kid likes painting and I was pretty much bad at everything else growing up and it’s not until half way through high school I realised that everyone who is also painting at this time was better than me and everyone who is drawing around me, much better than me, I found myself in the middle of the barrel, and then I started studying to be a teacher, trying to do something completely different and then half way there I found oil paintings for the first time, and I tried the medium that everyone says is the most difficult thing in the world to do - ‘if you don’t know how to paint with acrylics you shouldn’t touch oils’ - tried it and it was just my language. It’s like I’ve been trying to express something my entire life and that was the language, so immediately I realised that this is what I want to do, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life, yeah and just went for it, rented a studio.

Henrik Uldalen, Clinch, 2019 — Henrik Uldalen, *Clinch*, 2019

Do you have any rituals in terms of actually getting to your paintings or while you’re painting or anything like that, is there anything that you need to do in order to get yourself into the zone of painting?

No actually, on the contrary, I don’t believe in inspiration and rituals, so I force myself up every day. Leave the bed at 6:45 in the morning, go to the studio, work my ass off until 5 and then I leave. And although most of the time I don’t feel like painting - 90% of my life I don’t feel like painting - but I need to paint, I need to get it out my system, so I force myself to work and I find that more often than not half way into a painting or a few hours into painting I’ll be in the zone somehow. I’ll find myself in some kind of groove and actually enjoy myself.

Do you find yourself thinking about your paintings outside of the studio and how you can move on with them and what else you want to do with them and so on and so forth?

I used to, and the more structure I put into my work routine, the less I need to think about it. Before it would be integrated in my life and I wouldn’t have weekends, I would just be living painting all the time, and it would also be quite destructive in my personal life because I would just be painting most of the time, but now that I’ve been able to structure myself around painting I’m much more able to leave the work at work, and go and have a nice time outside of it.

Finally, and because I can’t not ask, Instagram, how do you feel about it?

[Laughs] So I both love and hate Instagram, I both love and hate social media, well when I started out on Instagram in the beginning I just came out of a few year long boycott of Facebook because i just hated social media. But my gallery at the time said ‘Henrik you need to get on Instagram’. Obviously, I owe instagram a massive amount of gratitude because it’s pretty much made my career and in many ways being an artist living in Norway, a small town in Norway, it’s pretty cool seeing people from all over the world, commenting and liking and seeing my work. It’s really opened up things but at the same time Instagram as the name suggests is only for, it’s only an introduction, it’s only a you know a split second of attention and then it’s onto the next thing. That’s not how my art should be experienced and that’s not how most peoples’ art should be experienced; people spend months and months on something and it should be worth more than just the swipe on a phone. But it’s a good introduction, so if you see something and you like it, you know I like the fact that so many can see it and maybe think ‘I’m going to go to that exhibition now’ or ‘I’m going to go see that movie in the cinema’ or ‘I’m going to go and see that musician on the stage’, which is how it’s supposed to be experienced.

Henrik Uldalen’s Lethe is on view until the 11th of January 2020, at JD Malat Gallery, 30 Davies Street, W1K 4NB.

Words by Arietta Chandris

Jan 3 In conversation with Henrik Uldalen

Could you please talk me through the exhibition?

You said the words failing memory, how would you define that a bit further? Why is memory failing?

Pink plays an important role in the entire series, can you talk to me a bit more about that?

The models that you paint, are these people that you know? Or do they come from your imagination?

Can you elaborate on that?

I see that you use quite a lot of layering in your paintings, what’s your process behind that? How do you decide how far to go into it, and when it’s time to stop?

Why has it been challenging and horrifying?

So you’ve been a bit more intuitive and free with this series?

Why is that performative aspect important to the overall theme that you’re trying to explore in your exhibition?

Will you continue this exploration further after the exhibition is over, or will you focus on a separate idea and a separate concept you would like to explore?

Do you draw inspiration from other artists, or other forms of art?

Would you consider experimenting with mediums you don’t know much about in the future, like film or music?

You mentioned that if you start using another medium and exploring, you might end up feeling different about it. Where do you stand with painting, how come you went into the medium of painting and where did it all come from?

Do you have any rituals in terms of actually getting to your paintings or while you’re painting or anything like that, is there anything that you need to do in order to get yourself into the zone of painting?

Do you find yourself thinking about your paintings outside of the studio and how you can move on with them and what else you want to do with them and so on and so forth?

Finally, and because I can’t not ask, Instagram, how do you feel about it?

Jan 21 SLAY in 2020

Dec 20 10 Minutes with Iraina Mancini