Born 1946 in Denmark – Died 1991

Painter, writer

 

Education and travels:

1967-72 Art Academy in Copenhagen/The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen

1969-71 Travels to Morocco, Algeria, France and Italy

1977 - Painting in the Alps

1979 - Painting in Tanzania

1982 - The landscape on Kithara, Greece

 

Biography:

Gunnar Møller began in his very early years to have an interest for art – especially drawing.

While he grew up, he got more and more spellbound of the art and when he was ready, took an education under Egill Jacobsen in the Academy of Art. Gunnar Møller was a very intelligent but at the same time a very complex person, drawn by the hectic city life but especially drawn by nature which puzzled him when he traveled many times in foreign countries, but also from his many trips out in the open and free nature using angling as a dear hobby.

With great enthusiasm he threw himself over motifs and because of his inspiration from the unaffected nature, the earlier works were mostly landscape sceneries – his preferred choice.

Han became member of the artistic group “Violet Sol” where Uffe Christoffersen also was involved and participated in many exhibitions before the group’s demise in 1988. During that period, his artistic style changed and he became very expressionistic and searched for the grandiose. He brought life-force and artistic pleasure and were in the good sense an original talent.

He died aged 45, sadly a very early death, as a victim of a bestial homicide.

 

Gunnar Møllers own description of his approach to art, taken from the exhibition catalogue from Galerie Birch in 1983:

«The elements»

 

Forces of nature and free play

Two elements, sky and sea, contrast each other in their mirrored images.

I use the optical impact I find, say in the landscape around Agger where the two elements reciprocal mirroring is so clearly evident, directly in my painting. Landscape is the space in which we find ourselves, the space in which we mirror ourselves. Presented with a view, we look, outwards and inwards. In my own case, I use the expression "the rapt landscape" about landscape painting - the intensely real landscape where everything is present, the world view; but it can be seen in nature, as the real, the visible.

When i see landscape, I perceive simultaneously the mirror image of the soul and a portrait becomes visible. I am aware of the elements: wind, fire and water. The earth is our first and our last element. The image of the water and the sky above it interests me, their common horizon, and this I sense as the farthest reachable. We room all the elements. We encompass both the storm and the calm sea within us. We contain landscapes. The places I paint are devoid of people. For the moment, basic elements of nature and some of the primordial landscapes are what I paint - because our origins are here and we are derived from these elements. The onlooker is the only person present in these landscapes.

In my landscape painting I pursue the cruelty that lies in nature which is so close to beauty. Beauty ensnares and transports me, casting me into the infinite space of a landscape which I, in turn, select as subject. The "rapt landscape" emerges as an expressionist image, where the moment and the mind achieve their expression. I paint landscape elements in their most extreme state, while the harmony between the subject and my self materializes into the choice of that picture.

5/8-83 Agger in southern Thy

I'm beginning to realize that when I paint landscapes, even my thought processes about the images become simplified to just the elements that i am painting. Today I walked around the house like this - and in an instant I looked up at the sky in the west over the seawall; I caught myself looking at it as my picture.

 

Exhibitions:

1967-70 Exhibited annually at K.E. in Copenhagen

1976 - »Mostra per Giovanni artisti esteri«, Roma

1978 "Det danske landskab", Hasselby Slot, Stockholm

1979-81 With »Violet Sol« in Finland, Sweden and Norway

1980 The Vraa Exhibition", Northern Jutland

1981 Holstebro Museum and Galleri Birkdam

1982 »Kunstforeningen« in Copenhagen and Efterårsudstillingen at Charlottenborg, Copenhagen

1984-86 Galerie Birch, Copenhagen and Galerie Boibrino, Stockholm

1985 Viborg Stiftsmuseum, Trapholt, kolding

1986 Galerie Boibrino, Stockholm

1987 Gl. Holtegaard, Copenhagen

1989 Galerie Nord, Randers

1989-90 Galleri Henrik Kampmann, Copenhagen

1990 Exhibition title "Virus" at Overgaden, Copenhagen

 

Books:

1976 "Silent Rome", Chinese-ink drawings, printed in Rome

1981 Brendum/"Booze" poems by Asger Schnack, ink drawings, Broendum edition

1982 "The death of Ivan Ilitsch" by Leo Tolstoy, Chinese-ink drawings

 

Selected honorary:

The Danish Art Foundation

The Roman foundation of Queen Ingrid

Copenhagen Culture foundation

EEC Parliament at Strasbourg