Breathing Spaces

Since 2003, Nils Ohlsen has worked exclusively in the medium of watercolor. His vibrant works captivate with their clarity, luminosity, precision, and balanced compositions. Situated between Constructivism, Concrete Art, Color Field Painting, and Minimal Art, Ohlsen continually explores new visual possibilities, even where one might think everything has already been said.

Strict Principles of Order and Serial Structures

The principles of order and rhythmic structures in Ohlsen’s works are as simple as they are complex. Despite the conscious limitation to a narrow repertoire of forms, the pieces never appear rigid or hermetically sealed, but rather open and rhythmically animated. Ohlsen works with simple pairs of opposites such as plane - line, openness - closedness, periphery - center, warm - cold, detail - entirety. The purism of his minimalist concepts is contrasted by the transparent lightness of the colour fields. The artist's goal is always to bring stillness and movement into a tense balance. Variations, or what Ohlsen calls “declinations” of minimalist orders, lend his works a rhythmic lightness that often seems to extend beyond the surface into the viewer’s space.

Reduction and Subtraction

Ohlsen is constantly seeking simplification and reduction. He knows that nothing is harder than painting “nothing,” let alone achieving it without composition. Nevertheless, this ideal stands as an unreachable goal above the creative process. Typically two, and often only one, colour in varying intensities is used. A distinctive feature of his works is the subtraction of applied colour with sponges. The colour absorbed by the paper is partially removed during the artistic process, creating numerous nuances of the original colour and visually opening the surface into space. Since this must be done quickly with a lot of water, chance plays a significant role in the creative process.

The Underestimated Medium

Ohlsen considers watercolour to be the most underestimated medium in art history. His love for watercolour results from his search for a medium that does without the materiality of a support and comes closest to pure light. To achieve an immaterial luminous effect, he fully exploits the technical possibilities of watercolour with its transparencies, traces of various subtraction, mixing, and drying processes.

Concept and Process

Especially in light of the limitations of the form repertoire, Ohlsen is intrigued by the search for new possibilities. For him, the quality of a finished work always depends on the sustainability and consistency of the underlying concept. The mental visualization of an idea can be drawn from observed structures in reality or it is a purely abstract play of forms in the mind. During the painting process, the initial concept can sometimes be questioned and spontaneously modified. Only at the moment when the pigments penetrate the paper with a lot of water does the ambivalence between plan and chance become tangible. "Painting," Ohlsen says, "also means having the courage to make mistakes and to quickly shift between a meditative state and intense concentration."

Construction and Emotion

In his concrete-constructive works, Ohlsen continuously circles around the question of what a painting can be today in light of constant visual overstimulation and what it means to be creatively engaged. "Because I don’t know what will happen, but I sense that it could turn out well, I create art. Ultimately, it's always about transforming external chaos into internal calm." When the artist considers a piece successful, it is because it possesses an inherent compelling simplicity that also holds something all-encompassing or, if you will say so, universal.