Black Cat
The painting is full of life, full of people. Large and small, they are standing in circles or sitting. A child is in the middle of a leap. The longer we look at the picture, the more people we see. Two animals are prominent in the painting.
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The picture is painted in such a way that the motif appears clearer at a distance. Brush strokes that seemed abstract at close range suddenly fall into place as a female figure. To the left a dog is looking at us, apparently unaware of the smaller animal moving right behind it.
The cat prances between long human legs. It is not the first thing we see when we look at the picture, small as it is. But when we notice it, the cat becomes an eye catcher. We can see how it is moving at a gliding pace, superbly untouched by the hectic energy of the surroundings. The black animal is surrounded by silence, while the picture as a whole gives an impression of noisy sound.
Johannes Vinjum (1930-1991) belongs to a group often called the “new figurative” or “neo-romantics”, which in the 1960s and -70s found other ways to the modern than the leading abstract or political tendencies in art. Vinjum looked at the painting as a process, changing and tinkering with the surface to obtain his luminous, sensory images. His pieces can be found in the National Gallery and the Museum of Contemporary Art, and at the Vinjum Gallery at Aurlandsvangen.
NORA SØRENSEN VAAGE