Luerne 1980

Stig Brøgger made "Luerne" with what looks like oil paint, and I imagine, a whole lot of intuition. The painting feels like a dark, swirling world, right? There's this dense, almost gothic, atmosphere created by the blacks and deep blues, but then suddenly, BAM, a flash of orange or a smear of white cuts through. I bet that Stig was working and reworking, layering and scraping, trying to find something, maybe not even knowing what, until it appeared, right there on the canvas. I wonder if he felt like he was excavating something rather than constructing it? That gesture down on the bottom left, for example, with the smear of red and blue— it's not just color, it's a feeling, a mood, almost a shout. It reminds me of some of the darker paintings from the CoBrA group. We are all standing on each other's shoulders.