Pernille de la Porte Ovesen: Almost Random

Pernille de la Porte Ovesen spent more than two decades immersed in the post-abstract expressionism scene in New York. At the beginning of the seventies she studied at The New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, an art institution founded in 1964 by American abstract expressionist painter Mercedes Matter.

Apart from Matter, the faculty included, among others, Esteban Vicente, George J. McNeil, Alex Katz, Phillip Guston, George Spaventa, Sidney Geist and Nicolas Carone, all of whom had a great influence on the development of Ovesen’s own aesthetics and style. Under the influence of this spirited New York art environment, Ovesen generated her expressive lyricism with emphasis on intensive colour and tough brushstrokes, which lent a vigorous composition to her paintings. In fact, her painterly vocabulary reflects a constancy of distinction; and the shadows of abstract expressionism, visible as reminiscences around her paintings, impending here & now, acted as a contemporary legacy.

The exhibition Almost Random shows the unity of that legacy infused as it is with Ovesen’s own intimate insights. Her singulary engaging language builds on layers of painterly abstractions that allow for diverse subjective interpretations.

Almost Random is a combination of older and newer works from 1990s to today where the artist’s reflections of inner and outer worlds are visible through a clear dedication to her own spontaneous expressions. Nonetheless, the seemingly random imagery in the paintings is deceptive. Ovesen’s approach is unconstrained, but subtly articulates feelings of belonging to her own voice. This intuitive eloquence emphasise a playfulness through which the viewer can continuously engage in rediscovering Ovesen’s certainty of form, composition and use of colour. Sharing sensibility and assertiveness, Pernille de la Porte Ovesen is an artist of masterly visual communication. She paints with a powerful tenderness that encourages viewers to read her paintings with both emotional and intellectual openness. And her personal expression filters through the viewer’s sensory experience a world of intimate vulnerability and the courage of survival.

Kilde: Renata Maiblum Gallery