Terje Fagermo has put down his spatula and the bruch

 One of my most significant "tutors" within my own self-taught painting development died a month ago.

Terje Fagermo left this world on December 17th last year. He became 93 years young, and has made a lot of great colorful paintings together with other art expressions (sculptures, decorations and installations). 

As one of "the Selected" Tullen and I received the privilege to visit his studio in Ålesund and also "Kornbua" at Sandbu, Vågå, where the late owner Kjell Holm had made a special gallery for Terje´s paintings

Terje Fagermoe is well known as a painter that uses his hometown and the landscape close to fjords and mountains as motives for his paintings.  This one is covering "Molja lighthouse" with the buildings at "Molovegen" where his studio is located

I have also presented two variations of another motive: "Slinningsbua" which Terje Fagermo as many other artists have done with different color backgrounds 

Terje Fagermo is also called the "Painter of Light" which these examples show.

I have not enough competence to describe Terje Fagermo´s art in Norwegian or even Global perspective, but for me his colors and moods expressed through the canvas have had an enormous impact of how I see visual arts and how I try to make my own paintings.

I am rude enough to present some of my own paintings in this blogpost . Hopefully some of my blog-friends will see his influence, although I will not trying to compare my own works with Terje Fagermo´s quality art.

Thank you very much for your inspiration Terje.

January 2nd 2026 - The winter has arrived

 After a Christmas without any snow in central Oslo, Norway, I woke up this morning with these images from my Balcony 

The new Year has given us a feeling of normal wintertime although the environment changes are felt strongly here as well as all around the world. 

Happy new Year (Feliz Navidad) to all my blogging friends in Asia, America and Europe. I will try to keep you posted about my life morer frequently in 2026.

Paintings 2025 Acrylic on Canvas and Paper

 The painting season is over for 2025.

A lot of works have been produced and I feel that I am developing my skill every time I grab the brush and put colors on canvas. This summer I have also went back to my first way of making paintings by working with acrylic on paper. It is cheaper and can be seen as sketches for future works on canvas

In this blogpost I will first present some of these paperworks and then return to the canvas works.

Summer night

Female and Male Figures

Abstraction

My canvas works started with som adjustments of basement stored paintings where I found it necessary to improve the result if they should be put on walls here and there.

Moonlight

Act

Pride

Then I went back to my everlasting obsession to make variations of landscapes without any particular location (I paint what I saw and not what I see) 

The rough nature of Norway´s western coastline with mountains and fjords and the barren landscapes far north makes many possibilities for expressing my mind although some may found it close to their own homes.

Trapper´s hut

Going west

Boathouses

Mountain shelter 

Fjord mist

Nature can also be expressed through abstract and colorful paintings. I have made four images representing the four seasons winter, springtime, summer and autumn. They are not necessarily connected and have individual titles.

Cold Ocean

Nøkken

Summer cottage

Tree cluster

Sometimes I also want to go back to my very first experiments of making paintings by using cubism as a reference for reaching a free colorism like some of the paintings above.

Water

Trees

Mountains

Mathematics

This summer I therefore (inspired by the TV series about Ancient Aliens) I made an expression of a UFO leaving a faraway star.

Red Moon

Because I am really bad at making real portrait of living persons I sometimes make expressions like masks. This summer I had a canvas that was too narrow and too long for another landscape so another mask was worked out

The sad mask

A photo of my only male grandchild Henrik when he was performing with his guitar before an audience in England was also used as inspiration for a painting without being able to identify the face 

Henrik and Bamseklem

Calligraphic expressions is another way of making art. I have been given a Chinese name since I stayed in Singapore 30 years ago documented in my old business card. Why not put my calligraphic surname on canvas by using my ovn paintbrushes, was the meaning behind my closing painting from summer 2025.

An Liang Sheng

 

Visiting Kristiansand and Arendal

 In Norway, one of the most visited tourist areas during the months we here call Summertime, is "Sørlandet" (Southern-Norway). 

Two of the cities in this area which we never before had visited were Kristiansand and Arendal (Both cities established early 17th century by merchants from Holland). Some wooden houses from this time are still to be seen  

To Kristiansand we arrived mostly for the new Kunstsilo and " The Tangen Collection " 

Outside

Inside

A fantastic building but also with some interesting artworks present this time 

Carl-Henning Pedersen´s "Ascetic portrait" is my choice among the many spectacular paintings that was shown in the exhibition "Cosmic Dimensions" by him and Else Alfelt .

One of the decorated tables at the lobby-cafe is also worth to be included in this blogpost.

Before we left Oslo we believed that at least some of the Tangen Collection would be on the walls, but only the "Gjerdeløa" could be seen at the time we visited.

Left: Tullen sitting at the same opening as the artist Marianne Heske (right) did in Tafjord 45 years ago.

The story of the artist´s event by moving the old mountain cabin (built before 1687) from the Norwegian mountains  to Paris and the Pompidou art center, is an extraordinary milestone in international art history 

In Kristiansand skulpturs can be seen all over the city and the large jar (named Jar) made by Kjell Nupen is my choice this time. 

Before leaving "Sørlandet" bound for Oslo, we also made a pit stop at Arendal to see the famous "Pollen" and grab a sandwich for lunch which we had to share with some sparrows.

Pip Pip

"Pollen" is the most visited anchorage for boat-people visiting Arendal, and this "pirates ship" as some locals commented under our lunch was no exception 

Innermost at "Pollen" this naval mine (without explosives) is a leftover from WW one.

 

On the way through nostalgia, Remembering old paintings

 Fourteen years ago we lived in a nice old apartment with ceiling 3,42 m above the floor. We developed a great art collection based on our most favorable painters.

Per Deberitz, Sigurd Danifer and Thore Heramb had their preferred place in our living room. 

Today we are living in another apartment with much fewer walls available for paintings. The paintings on the photo below therefore had to be sold to other art collectors, and we know that some also ended up with famous art collectors, and can sometimes be part of public exhibitions.

However, one of these paintings will never disappear from my memory and today I decided to make an imitation of one. The process from sketch to signature is shown below.

Before putting my signature "A" on the lower right corner, the last changes had to be made after some comments from my kurator: Tullen

Now the "Nostalgic"has been put on the wall at our apartment entrance and can be seen many times every day