Paintings

I was four years old when I got the book: twenty pages with simple drawings in black and white. “Just pick a brush, dip it in water…and paint”, they say. And so I did. Unbelievable! The colour pigments hidden in the organic paper tissue revealed themselves and in a few minutes I had a watercolour picture in front of my surprised eyes. From that moment on, I knew colours had to do with magic – and that I could be a part of this extraordinary phenomenon.


I have been painting since then, sometime less, sometimes very devoted. I have attended many practical and theoretical art courses. I became an art psychotherapist. I have passionately read about art history and the big masters among artists. I instinctively fell for some of them: Da Vinci, Gauguin, Matisse, Kandinsky, Münther, Mondrian, Modigliani, Chagall, Aguéli, Klee, Picasso, Kahlo, Kröyer, af Klint and many others. I have tried to learn from them about colour, form and the spaces in between; I have even tried to follow their path. But I have always found myself back on my own personal “railway”, using my own colours, motives, movements and lines. Where do these come from? Must be from the inside and from my personal meeting with the outer world; from my own life experiences, my sense of this world. Or is it from my efforts to grasp the meaning of life, time and space?


Style? I am not sure that I have one. I have used many different techniques and materials, getting different results. I have painted varying themes, sometimes mixing them: shapes and people; shadows and light; houses and landscapes, impressions that I have picked during my childhood in Chile and along the many routes I have travelled along, beyond my home country. When I think about it, maybe my ultimate theme is simply all about roots...


Photo: Christer Boman