A place where beauty and savagery meet in secrecy
Norwegian artist believes the local landscape will seep into his paintings
Norwegian painter Lars Elling, who has already been heaped with international glory, has built a studio in SA where he spends the summers. He is lithe, almost balletic in his movements. He appears well balanced, both physically and mentally, curious about the world and tolerant of other people’s foibles — everything that a Norwegian social democrat should be — and kind to boot. He is married with three daughters and the youngest is only four-years-old. His exterior reveals little of the paintings he executes which are filled with dark intelligence and the shadow of madness. One gets a sense of the beauty and savagery of the world simultaneously, something that seldom happens in real life. Elling has the same facility with metaphors as Angela Carter’s fiction (I recall a pink corset sticking out of a coal scuttle) but less overwhelming, more controlled and never sentimental or sensational. All the pictures have a narrative with an emotional texture that can send viewers right off the...
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