Lars Nørgård is a reflective and knowledgeable artist who also writes, but he is first and foremost a painter who draws from his inner self. He originally worked in a photorealistic style, but during his studies in San Francisco in the early 1980s he was drawn to American Abstract Expressionism. It is with inspiration from this art that he has continuously worked in the recent decades with his fully or partially abstract, high-energy paintings. He uses not only oil paint, but also acrylic, crackle paste and other materials that create a dynamic and tactile play on the surface, as evidenced by the works in CCA‘s exhibition BIG CALM, including the four monumental works of up to 4 square meters: “A Gentle Breeze”, “Flaky”, „Melissa“ and “Love and the Opposite” from 2023-25. The exhibition also includes a series of drawings done with pen, brush pen and color pencils on paper. The title of the exhibition refers to the great calm that can come to the mature artist in the midst of battles on the canvas that are anything but calm.

The strong, explosive colors, the many dynamic lines that constantly change direction, the ever-changing motif with organically curved shapes that meet the geometric, the material-rich areas and unpredictable trace formations on the surface create a vital universe that the eyes never finish following and trying to capture, get a hold of and decipher. It is a vital turbo painting. The works function as genuine visual brain gymnastics and are a subtle mix of delicate drawing with sharp lines and an abstract-expressive, polychrome and material painting. The two expressions meet on the surface and fertilize each other in a fruitful, unpredictable dialogue. Lars Nørgård‘s virtuosic visual language appears as encrypted messages that incessantly escape a final solution or translation, just when you thought you had found it. This is art at its best.

The aforementioned stylistic features also appear in his 200 x 270 cm lithograph – the world‘s largest color lithograph – “The French Clot-nection”, which he made at the lithographic workshop Clot, Bramsen et Brunholt in Paris in 2017. This graphic tour de force shows what a fine printmaker Lars Nørgård also is. It is a single motif that also appears “piecemeal and divided” into 12 smaller works, as the 12 lithographs all contain a motif that reflects the main motif and can therefore stand alone.

Lars Nørgård graduated from the School of Applied Arts in 1975-78 and from the Academy of Art College, San Francisco in 1980-81. He is one of the most prominent living painters in Danish contemporary art. His works are included in the collections of almost all state-recognized Danish art museums, including Horsens Art Museum, Statens Museum for Kunst, ARoS, Arken, Esbjerg Art Museum, Kastrupgaardsamlingen, Trapholt, Heart - Herning Art Museum and many more. Fondazione Aldega in Italy also has works by Lars Nørgård in its collection. Lars Nørgård has also created a large number of works for public spaces, including for Aarhus University Hospital and DTU, north of Copenhagen.

Text by Lisbeth Bonde. MA, author and art critic, based in Copenhagen, June 2025