Arthur Halvorsen

Artist Statement

Throughout my life I have always found myself attracted to things, people and places that are over the top. The lavish and the excess feed my creative soul, which I take and interpret the same attention to detail into my studio practice. My work evolves through creative repetition; making or drawing the same subject over time, Filling a blank piece of newsprint with the same flower but different, that’s where I find the joy in making. A pop of color here, an action line there. The pleasure is in the process, I enjoy working in contradiction of the ordinary. Vivienne Westwood once said "I'm not trying to do something different, I'm trying to do the same thing but in a different way." This quote resonates with me. I'm not trying to reinvent platters, cups or cake stands. I’m make pieces infused with my own flavor and aesthetic, where I put my bold mark on the world. My pieces embody fun and joy. Nothing succeeds like excess and so I decorate over the top; layering patterns with images, colors and textures creating my own worlds. I see my flowers and city things as people. Some I know, others are ambiguous to me but are part of the collective human condition, we all face. Like looking into a crowd of people full of personalities where you can see their feelings and emotions through the use of color and pattern. My drawings of flowers and objects are of people that I can say who they are. Some of my reaccuring cast of characters are some people I interact with daily, others I only see at holidays. recurring. I have come up with my own story as to what’s happening on the pot, the relationships, Who’s interacting or not with who. and what I see as the feelings and emotion. I invite the viewer to do the same and come up with their own story of what’s going on in my pieces. Every piece tells a story. When my story and a viewers story don’t quite meet up or take on different meanings to subject material, to me that’s even better!