About The Artist

CONTEMPLATION We live in a time with great uncertainty, in our politics, our economic policies and relations with countries around the globe. What will the future bring? In this new series of paintings Mats Pehrson depicts people, contemplating in empty surroundings, alienated. His photographs of urban settings have been reduced in scale and erased of any reminder of city life. Replaced with painterly minimalistic settings, an unpredictable future. “Part poet, part journalist, Mats Pehrson looks at the world with an eye towards life’s contradictions. While he can paint sublimely lovely scenes, he sets out instead to capture the tensions that teem all around us. His talent as a painter imbues his works with a lush fullness and rich color tonality. And Pehrson’s understanding of pictorial space allows him to produce a striking sense of depth. While Pehrson may have strong social views, these are not message paintings; they are more riddles than aphorisms. This lack of resolve is by design. By granting room for individual interpretation, Pehrson seeks to “provide viewers with the opportunity to deepen their response” to a given subject. Seducing with cinematic splendor and painterly delight, Pehrson lures us towards a new appreciation of life’s complexity. His paintings remind us that experience itself is a collage of shifting fragments, held together by our own sense of beauty and order.” Suzanne Ramljak is an art historian, writer, and curator.