Morten Lassen

Overview

Morten Lassen is a Danish abstract painter, living and working in Copenhagen.

He creates richly-worked images, in which the variegated textures and complex colours of the freely painted surface, seem braced against a half-concealed sense of structure in the composition. Beneath the organic richness of all his paintings there lies a sense of something formal, even geometric. It is a compelling vision.

He works in sequence on multiple canvases (or sheets of card) concurrently, each suite of paintings being created over a period of weeks, or even months.

His process allows each new layer of paint to dry thoroughly before the application of the next, ensuring an element of clarity and control amidst the dynamic and expressive.

There are areas of over-painting, of scratching back, of drawing-over-painting, of spray-paint highlighting. Each layer of paint suggests and challenges the last.

‘Some paintings almost paint themselves and some I struggle with for a long time before they are finished. It is a long journey from start to finish, but it is the journey that makes the painting. Every brushstroke informs the next.’ – Morten Lassen

Lassen’s work has been exhibited extensively across the UK, Scandinavia, North America and Australia. His paintings are held in a number of public and corporate collections including the Ministry of the Interior and Health, Copenhagen; IBO, Den Danske Bank, and Ålborg Universitet.

Morten Lassen is a Danish abstract painter, based in Copenhagen, who has exhibited extensively in the UK, Scandinavia, Germany and Australia. He works in series on several canvases at a time, building up layers of oil paint in subtle grids of variegated texture and colour.

Often the work changes dramatically during the process of layering. It takes four to six months to finalize a group of paintings and during that time the work undergoes big colour changes. It is these change that build the painting, and it is only because of the journey that the works end where they end. I can't skip the journey.

Lassen has paintings in many public and corporate collections including Danske Advokater; the Ministry of the Interior and Health; IBO, Herlev; Den Danske Bank, Haderslev and Ålborg Universitet.

Works