Traveling triggers the thought

Having visited Nice (or “Nizza,” which better reflects the city’s subdued beauty) and Florence during this winter and spring, I found myself thinking about the color palette in Claes Eklundh’s most recent paintings. Red, orange, yellow and pink in a sudden encounter with navy or azure blue. It’s world away from the blue-black tones that once dominated his earlier, almost monochromatic works from Berlin and New York.

Like many artists, CE has been drawn to the dazzling Côte d’Azur. And Italy – the cradle of the Renaissance – has long been both a deep interest and, at times, a home. Now, these places seem to have awakened extraordinary life-affirming colors in CE:s late painting.

Here’s a reflection on the subject written for Market Art Fair.

Echoes of an Alto Sax

It’s a new era. A time when a global pandemic has shaken the world to its core, and terror and war continue to tear nations and people apart. Climate change, with its looming threat to our environment, has never felt more real. Empathy and trust are being eroded by fake news and truth-bending politicians. Democracy and openness are gasping for air. The world is literally on fire.

In this context, the “typical” Claes Eklundh might seem like a natural counterforce, with his contemplative yet commanding paintings urging us to reflect, to look inward.

But that was then. Claes Eklundh has moved on.

When he returned to Malmö after many years spent in the great art capitals of the world, something began to shift in what had long defined “the typical CE.” It was a transformation that unfolded gradually, shaped by periods without access to his studio, stretches of illness, and perhaps most of all—the isolation of the pandemic.

When the world finally reopened, it did so in a burst of new color and form. What followed has become one of the most productive creative periods of Claes Eklundh’s career. And it’s still unfolding.

How to describe this new energy, this new work in progress?

In some ways, it’s as if Eklundh’s painting has loosened its earthly tether. The physical, grounded quality has given way to imagery that feels as light as breath. At times, I can almost hear the paintings—improvisational jazz, French chanson, a classical trumpet. A solitary alto sax echoing through the cosmos.

The previously somber, stoic, even confrontational motifs—titled Guardian, Judgment Day, Pietà, Wrath, The Wound—have given way to mostly untitled faces and abstract landscapes. They carry a gaze and a curiosity that seem to come from somewhere far beyond the motifs and far beyond ourselves. These paintings don’t accuse; they observe. I suddenly see a glimpse of Odilon Redon’s cyclopean eye and think: God’s anguish has become God’s puzzlement.

And then, the colors. The deep blues that once dominated large works from Berlin and New York have given way to swirling, sometimes discordant color harmonies. I wonder if they’re drawn from another of Eklundh’s former home cities, Paris. Or perhaps even more from Provence, where he has often gone on study trips. Red, orange, yellow, and pink in sudden dialogue with azure…

On the one hand, I find myself recalling the rawness and vulnerability of the painters Soutine or Derain. On the other hand, the playful, life-affirming energy of Chagall and Matisse.

And then I think—maybe the colors come from somewhere much closer: the many parks in his hometown, Malmö, which each autumn burst into flames as chlorophyll drains from the leaves. ”A gift from nature, reminding us that after the cold, dark winter, spring always returns.”, as the artist himself says.

My father turned 80 this past fall. In these paintings, I see resurrection and hope.

A possible path to reconciliation.