Birgitte Lykke Madsen, Mare di Wadden II, Oil on Canvas, 2021

Large aerial landscape of the northern European sea Orange, red, brown Birgitte LYKKE MADSEN (Odense, Denmark, 1960) 1981-86, Educated from the Academy of Fine Arts, Odense First solo exhibition in 1983 Artist statement: “I am a painter. I am fascinated by the difference in cold and warm colors and the different atmospheres that it creates in our mind. My hereby presented oil paintings are describing people in water. The secret life under the water surface, or the public life watching crowds of people gathered in the sea, their connections or non-connections. The paintings explore the depth and the color of water and what influence it makes on people. I study, what influence the size of a space have on a person. - The immense and undefined room under water for a single person. I often paint a woman as I, as a woman, know this body; the gravity and the proportions, the strength and the weakness and the person´s size compared to the room around her. - The crowds of people in the sea show the tranquility, a certain moment in different people´s life suddenly connected through the water. Painting water sets me free of any limitation concerning room and reality - both in the use of colors as in the depiction. I use oil paint in my works as the nature of oil gives you the possibility to paint both transparent and/or cover the canvas (al prima). Especially in painting the sea, the transparency is important to my expression. In my work I try to connect to the viewer´s experiences; both to this very moment and to their recalled memories. I try to make them be aware of their being and of their present”.