Order undergoing conversion

Balance, stability, firmness, clarity have always characterized von Liewen´s art. Harmony in von Liewen´s paintings and sculptures is built up in the final stage, and consists of elementary forms, pure color scales and his modules, these reliable building blocks. With an apparentness and openness resting on sensible insight, just like a boy forming his sand castle at the beach, von Liewen gives us a world of images that stimulate the desire for life and optimism. This world brings us the sun, fresh winds, and open landscape. There are no dubious additions, details, frills, temporary ideas or improvisations, no elements of adornment whatsoever. The design and geometrics in von Liewen´s paintings put him in a long and significant line of people who have been influenced by functionalism, this periodically recurring guarantor for authenticity, sheer style, sincere language and complete control over intentions and the will´s desire. The solar system, with our globular mother Earth, orbiting with such disipline, has often been the foundation for thoughts of order arising from chaos. Order and consistency in things changing and revolutionary, I think, are a part of von Liewen´s life style. Rutger von Liewen is forever fishing in the waves of artistry. A clever observer with a natural talent for practical realization and creativity, and after yet another revolution in his orbit, he returns with new prey in his net. Like now, after ten eventful years, he shows the result of his ambition at the Artist Association Gallery. But the thing that is particularly exciting about von Liewen is that his non-figurative and geometrical tendencies live in harmony with the portrayals, especially in the paintings depicting landscapes. In one painting, the imagery increases with the crystallized non-figurative and constructive demands as far as style is concerned. In another painting, the abstract gets its blood and nerves from actual visual objects. And everything is being guarded by von Liewen´s need for finish and perfectionism in all that he does. He throws himself freely and spontaneously out into reality, and takes joy in all the shimmering and revolutionary sensations. Experiments with new sources for images, which have, as if by themselves and due to his life´s experience, opened up for him, while still aiming for order and the clear, distinct language of imagery. Obviously this is a step towards artistic freedom and new work-fields to conquer.

Pavel Vavruch, July 1998 Former Museum Director Vesteras

Education
International Art School, Stockholm. Two years study at University of Cambridge England.Studied with Professor Stig Lindberg and Berndt Friberg,Gustavsbergs Factories, Sweden Professional activities Professional photographer, architect, painter, graphic artist, and sculptor.

Study tours
France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Austria, USA and Mexico. Two year stay in England and three year stay in Denmark

Teaching experiense
25 years experience of teaching esthetic and artistic programs at Vesteras Art School, Vesteras/Eskilstuna University, Vesteras City, Koping municipality, as well as various education associations for adult, painting and photo schools.

Exhibitions
Solo and group exhibitions at the Art Museum in Vesteras, Educational Board of Directors in Stockholm, Svea Gallery in Stockholm, Falkenberg´s City Hall and many other Swedish galleries.

Overseas Exhibitions
Kassel in Germany, Lahti in Finland, Alesund in Norway,Randers and Bornholm in Denmark

Represented by
County councils in Vestmanland, Malmohus, Kristianstad,Stockholm, Sodermanland, Ostergotland, Norrbotten,Vesternorrland, and Elvsborg. Vesteras Art Museum, the City of Vesteras, Middle Halland Arts Association, the State Arts Council, the State Industri Department, the City of Stockholm, The Swedish Defence Research Agency, Industries and Personnel Arts Association, as well as private collectors in Sweden and abroad. More than 100 paintings sold to the State, County Councils and Museums in Sweden.

Public commisions
Work in plexiglass; personnel restaurant in Vesteras Tele-communication building, City of Vesteras, as well as underground passageways and bicycle tunnels in Vesteras.

Scholarship
Vesteras´s Cultural Scholarship
1978 Cityís Cultural Scholarship

Memberships
Swedish Photographers
Association (SFF), Organization
for Visual Arts Copyright in
Sweden (BUS), the Swedish Artist
National Organization (KRO),
Vesteras Artist Association


A Balance between Harmony and Dynamics

Rutger von Liewen has been active in many professional fields. However, when it comes to his artistic creativity, he has kept to the same geometric abstraction; a rarely epresented type of imagery. Strong, contrasting colors and elementary forms, such as triangles, rectangles, circles and squares, bring about the illusion of space and depth beyond the surfaces of the paintings. These are now being shown in a rich and well laid-out exhibition at the Artist Association Gallery in Vesteras. Rutger von Liewen has a connection with the traditions of the 1900´s, where sheer purist and concrete tendencies ran parallel with constructive, technically and functionally inspired ideas. Expressionism, particulary in graphics, could also reach a rustic simplicity and even surrealism, especially in the case of the Italian “Pittura Metafisica”, strived for purity and reduction in its imagery. The observer is reminded of all these impulses as he stands before von Liewen´s sculptures and paintings. Sometimes we can imagine Baertling´s dry colors and diagonals, sometimes the metaphysical paintings of ominously peaceful horizons, sometimes the constructivist´s raging visions of the future. But all of this is done as a personal, professional and careful, remodeling. We see the thoughtful “homo faber” in these paintings, a human being who builds and designs, rather than the dreamy and somewhat playful “homo ludens”. One perceives a pulsing dynamics in von Liewen´s painting that makes his works interesting and gives them quality of never coming to a complete rest. Even in the most studied harmony there is found a living tension.
VLT. Aug. 1998 Kristina Mezei



Paintings in witch geomitry prevales

Night light, Beach, Lighthouse, Alley. These titles say a lot about Rutger von Liewen´s paintings. He is a qualified architect and constructs motifs with strict geometrical figures. Yet they seem to have their own peculiar light and vitality. Night lights is a view overlooking a body of water. Small red, green and white squares depict ships moving in the dark. Statues play tricks on the observer´s eye. The tall triangular pillars appear to be three dimensional, but this effect is achieved by matt and glossy surfaces. von Liewen includes water in nearly all of his paintings. ”I have grown up around water, my father was a ship-owner and I have spent a lot of time at sea”, he says. The fact that he has spent three summers in Italy is reflected in the paintings that are now being shown at the Artist´s Association. The exhibition opens today, includes painting, sculptures and graphics.
VLT: Aug. 1998 Britt.L


Mediterranean Sunshine and Shadow

At previous art exhibitions, Rutger von Liewen has shown himself to be a very confident artist. Reality has provided material for abstractions to a greater or lesser extent. His recent solo exhibition confirms this impression. However, it is evident that von Liewen refrains from delving into further abstraction for the sake of compromising a discernible reality. His paintings are constructed through incorporation of wellbalanced verticals and horizontals, often projecting a break in this balance by using one or two diagonals or rounded forms. This bold contrast enhances the chiefly straight lines in his favorite motifs - Spanish and French Mediterranean houses. von Liewen works with whole blocks that are usually parallel to the motif, although his paintings oftentimes are freed perceptively towards an open, far-away horizon. Human forms are almost nonexistent; his paintings are like quiet and expectant scenes.At earlier Art Exhibitions Rutger von Liewen has shown himself to be a very confident artist. Reality has provided material for abstractions to a greather or lesser extent. The artist prefers painting with translucent colors, allowing the disciplined brush lines to appear on the color blocks with linear patterns in different directions. The colors are pure and clear, blending together with one or two stresses such as a streak of cold blue. This technique contrasts and, at the same time, accentuates the warmth of the entire painting. Unique to his paintings is the achievement of lustre, accomplished by the fusion of surrounding colors into blocks of clean white. Rutger von Liewen´s exhibition is quite consequent and consistent - a form of painting suggesting an origin derived more from the intellect than the emotions. This is not to say, however, that one does not experience powerful feeling and partcipation
in his paintings.
VLT. Sep 1973 L.A.L


Striving for Severity
Art Spree in Helsingborg

Puristic ideals are characteristic of the current exhibitor at Briiska Gallery, Rutger von Liewen. His works maintain a spatial tension and suggestive charge of abstract ambiguity. The ocean is nearly always present in his paintings, though never as an inactive element, but rather a decorative component in a severe, sharp-cut composition. von Liewen is one of the most exciting contributors to Helsingborg´s artistic life as of late, and it will be very interesting to follow his further development. He appears to be nearly bursting with ideas. He approaches painting in a very intellectually alert and deliberate manner. There appears to be no risk of him getting caught up in mannerisms.
HD.1978