Lisa Pettersson
I was trawling the net for new art, as you do, and I came across the work of Lisa Pettersson, a Swedish-born oil painter with a canny knack for recapturing that nostalgic glow we all look back on from time to time. Her work definitely leans towards the Pop Art end of the arts spectrum, but with a “stencil-style” edge that cannot help but give the viewer a warm feeling inside, the sort of feeling I used to get as a young child whenever I heard the tune “White Horses”. If you fancy recapturing some of that lost innocence from your childhood, a simpler view of life, brimming with snapshots in time of hazy days on the beach, colourful alphabet books, and the uncomplicated pleasure of pure play then her domesticated vision of what once was, for most of us no doubt, then take a stroll through the art of Lisa Pettersson.
Currently living in Edinburgh after a few years stint in Asia and Australia, her expanded world view has done nothing to deter her vision of the less complicated world of childhood, wonder is a rare commodity these days, it would probably be a far sweeter world if we could all see life through the eyes of Lisa.
‘With subject matter drawn from yellowing, dated family photographs, seaside postcards and other remnants from the past, it is a portrait of warm, pastel-coloured summers – homely and acutely recognisable, yet unreal, clichéd and sentimental.’
I remember tutors at art college constantly dissing anything that even approached kitsch, it’s a good job they didn’t have to teach Warhol, Lichtenstein or Koons. Seeing Pettersson’s work reminds me that life can’t always be that bad, at least at the beginning. If you fancy buying any of her oil paintings or mixed media pieces they range between a few hundred quid to under a grand at www.LisaPettersson.com.
