Biography in english
"I started studying God's creation the moment I was born"
"I started studying God's creation the moment I was born"
H A N S E G I L S A E L E
Born 1954, Nevlunghavn, Norway.
Lutheran.
Interpreter of the Revelation 13.
Visual art, music and literature.
Education
Confidential Main Source
Influences,smaller bigger
The flannelgraph influenced highly
This is a big influence: Startet at the age of six at a Sunday School in a pentecostal church where the female teachers used av flannelgraph, a board covered with flannelfabric resting on an easel. A storytelling medium using pictures in a creative way to unfold the important narrative of the stories in the Bible.
This influensed the artist highly.
1950s and 60s:
Learned basic watercolor techniques at the age of five-six.
Studied music from around the age of eight.
Started studying art books in the library at the age of eleven.
Early 1970s:
Studied drawing at higher secondary school. Studied metal work and took welding certificate. Started collecting art books and art magazines.
Referring to a confidencial Main Source on technical skills and art understanding
On the many questions on technical skills in drawing and painting (often remarked: represented with great precision, attention to detail and high degree of difficulty) the artist is referring to a confidencial Main Source.
Became in the 1980s Artistic Director of the Richard Wagner Institute, Norway
The institute co-arranged in the early 1990s - in cooperation with the Austrian Embassy in Oslo - a concert of John Cages "Radio Works".
Worked in the mid/late 1970s with concert arrangements
Along with four friends involved in (Musikkforumet Vestfold ) arranging concerts with mainly British band/artists such as Hawkwind, Eric Burdon, Manfred Mann's Earth Band, Roy Harper, Procol Harum, Edgar Broughton Band.
"Musikkforumet Vestfold" did in the mid 1970s arrange the first "Slottsfjell Festival" in the town of Tønsberg.
Musical training
Started musical training at the age of seven, under the guidence of Meyer Pedersen, a professional church organist in Larvik, Norway.
Continued under the guidence of the pianist Tyra Lind in the town of Horten until late teens.
Tyra's brother, Carl Victor Lind , was and artist and especially his work in coal hanging in Tyra's studio fascinated Hans Saele. Carl Victor Lind had emigrated to USA in 1927 and found work as a drawer for New York Herald Times. In 1930 he started an art school along with Arshile Gorky, an early abstract expressionist and one of Waldemar Januszczaks favorite artists.
Been working in oil colors since the age of twelve
1966, september 16, first oil painting after receiving a set of oil paint in gift from his mother.
1972, wallpainting in Christiania, Copenhagen
Made a wall painting as a street artist in Christiania*, Copenhagen, his first public appearance as a painter (age 17).
Independent full time artist since late teens.
*Christiania is an anarchist commune and partly autonomous intentional community established in 1971.
1973 First solo exhibition, in a gallery owned by a local bank in the town of Horten. Exhibited a huge seascape painting.
First meeting with the artist Hans L. Rasmussen in the town of Horten, a meeting that resulted in many Sunday-discussions, in Rasmussens home about art in general. Hans L. Rasmussen - Norske kirker
1974, establishing his first studio (in Slagen close to Åsgårdstrand)
Established his first studio along with an artist friend Erling Kristiansen. First meeting with Erling Kristiansen was some years earlier in the studio of the painter Anders Sjue - Norsk kunstnersleksikon - in the town of Tønsberg (Norways oldest town).
Erling Kristiansen (1930-1919) was born in New York and came to Norway with his norwegian-born parents in 1947.
Erling Kristiansen had solid knowledge of the American artscene, but was specialley influenced by the russian suprematism art movement. Erling Kristiansen became an important source of modern and contemporary art knowledge for the artist.
1975, winning an art competition in Oslo
The competition was arranged by Lions Club, Oslo, and Aftenposten, Norway's biggest newspaper.
Article with picture of Hans Saele and the winner-painting in Aftenposten.
The painting "Behind the Iron Curtain" - a painting in the blue-series started 1974 - was bought by the art dealer and collector, Erling Pedersen (1921-2011).
1976, first encounter with the gallerist Lars Mollbrink, Sweden
A long time companionship. Mollbrink, a gallery presenting Swedish and international Scandinavian fine art on art fairs (recently London Art Fairs) ranging from the 19th century to contemporary.
1977, became acquainted with the swedish heraldic artist Sven Sköld
who visited Saele in his studio. Sven Sköld (konstnär) – Wikipedia
The Peace Child-scandal
Caused some major art scandals in Norway in the late 1970s - early 1980s.
In 1979 an elderly woman fainted at the opening of a H.E. Saele exhibition, in front of a painting titled "The Peace Child" (the painting showed a crucified child), and, in front of the present journalists.
The exhibition was immediately closed and the Peace Child painting temporarily confiscated. The headlines wrote "Art Shock!"
This was, according to the leading national news papers, the biggest art scandal in Norway during the 1970s.
The following heated debate lasted more than a month. Saele was defended in the press - among others - by an art historian and a bishop.
The peace child painting was sold and the money was given by the painter to an organisation working for Vietnam boat refugees.
A year later Saele got the painting back - in exchange for another painting. He then destroyed the Peace Child painting.
The Primal Cry-scandal
In 1981 Saele burned - in protest - a painting called The Primal Scream, after the painting had been removed at the opening of an exhibition at Sandefjord Art Society (Sandefjord Kunstforening).
The board of the art Society meant the pastel painting of a menstruating woman performing primal scream therapy would shock the audience, and again a Saele art show was closed down. A debate on the "Shocking art of Hans Saele" lasted for several weeks in the media.
Background for the painting: A female friend of Hans Saele comitted suicide by freezing to death on a hill. She had told Saele that she sometimes practised primal scream therapy in the woods when she menstruated. Her tragic death was the inspiration of the Primal Scream painting.
A disturbed woman came to Saele and told she identified herself with the woman on the painting and wanted to know the exact location of where the "Primal Cry painting" was burned. She threatened to burn herself to death on the exact same spot.
Saele told her he "unfortunately couldn't remember the exact location".
Going anonymous
Saele went anonymous from around 1984 after a quarrel with one of the leading newspapers in Norway, Dagbladet. A quarrel that was taken to the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, NRK ( Lisa Strindberg "Streiftog i Kulturlivet).
Saele gave up a conventional "art career", and took only part in some few exhibitions such as Gallery Mollbrink, Uppsala, Sweden, Stockholm Art Fair and Gallery Art Now, Gothenborg, Sweden.
Year 2000-2003, participated in group shows in American Museums
Participated in group shows in American Museums: Chicago (Swedish Art Institute); Minneapolis, Swedish American Museum; Seattle, Nordic Heritage Museum, 2003, a museum sponsored by Bill and Melinda Gates foundation,
The Nordic Masters exhibitions was arranged by Gallery Mollbrink and did show artworks of contemporary and earlier Nordic masters such as Anders Zorn and Edvard Munch.
Fusionism and Abstract Realism
Saele consider himself being the first (of his knowledge) in Europe using the terms "Fusionism" and "Abstract Realism" in painting.
The stolen T-Bone sculpture
In 1984 one of Saele's hyper realistic T-bone sculptures was stolen from a group exhibition in "Kunstnerenes Hus", Oslo, the main contemporary art gallery in Norway.
1985 Working a full year studying stone lithograhps in Oslo
1999, june 7, Copenhagen, Gallery Episteme
Exhibition presenting the ism Abstract Realism, an oxymoron with zero hits on the Internet, and regarded as absolute bullshit. Today the term abstract realism is used by thousands of artist around the world (also by Saatchi art).
2016 Hans Sæle's long time studio in Stokke - a solid building from the 1960s - is burned down by the local gouvernment after refusing selling it to the artist.
Establishing Art Yard Academy, an international forum for presentation of the different art expressions of Hans Egil Saele (now writing his full name).
2017 Starting the Grid series in his studio in Sweden, a series of watercolor paintings in grid patterns
2019 Presentation of Saele's work through the Art Yard Academy concept.
Styles (ism's) "Yes I'm a serial painter!"
Saele today
Works mainly in fashion of "Nature" and "Fusionism", often in thematic series
The latest and ongoing is a series of watercolor paintings called the Grid series and crumplings where the paper are artistically crumpled in the prosess. Also working in ink on crumpled craft paper.
Said on the fusionist paintings of H.E.Saele:
"I hold these images for work of art that goes beyond
the present time."
Professor Aleksandra Bielecka
