the feast

Hooray for two new serigraphs by Olle Halvars! In The Feast and Pink Soil, the artist wants to capture the eternal circle of life; how plants and meat become soil and give new life.

"The Feast depicts the party you can see around a carcass in the forest or in a compost, which in a few days can do away with everything that was previously there," says Olle Halvars. “The idea was that Pink Soil was to show invasive species, but the style of the plants didn’t really fit the expression I was looking for. So I made thistles and poppies instead, they live in a kind of harmony with the birds and the worms.”

The artworks are serigraphs, or silkscreen prints as they are also called, in editions of 55 and 60, printed at the classic Atelier Landberg in Aspudden outside Stockholm. Olle Halvars started with sketches that he then reworked several times to find the right expression. Finally, he used liquid ink to get a more painterly feeling in the print.

Olle Halvars often prints himself, but this time he turned to Catarina Landberg at Atelier Landberg to be able to make a larger edition and print all the way to the edges of the paper.

“We worked together to get the perfect colors. They must have a high enough contrast to be distinguishable, but not so much that they become sharp”, says Olle Halvars. The pink color has a splash of mother-of-pearl in it, which makes it glisten in sunlight. From the beginning it was a mistake, but in the end it turned out to be very successful!”

Preparations for Pink soil in ink

One of the mylar films that will be transfered to a screen and printed in one colour

Catarina Landberg at Atelier Landberg test printing on the workshop's big printing press

The prints are left to dry after each colour

Pink soil drying after two colours having been printed

The result: The Feast, 45x63 cm, edition 55

Pink Soil, 63x45cm, edition 60