Andreas Lærum (1975) is a draftsman, and has been a member of Tegnerforbundet since 2017. Lærum's works are often in landscape format and in the same size, and executed with paintmarkers . The drawings are abstract and consist of a combination of geometric and organic shapes in bright, strong colours. While the eye quickly loses its grip on the many small details at close range, the works have an almost hypnotic effect at a greater distance. The associations evoked when considering Lærum's work diverge between everything from oriental patterns, plants, organisms under the microscope, maps and references to Op-art. Here and there you can recognize figurative elements which, together with the works' often unexpected and specific titles, give the viewer a hint as to how the works can be read.
Andreas Lærum lives and works in Asker. More information about Andreas Lærum here .
TF: Can you tell us a little about your artistic work?
AL: When I was little, I often drew things I was afraid of. There could be, for example, ghosts and monsters, torture chambers and operating theaters in hospitals, and not least war. This is a topic I can still be concerned with today. I remember the realization that I could actually create my own alternate worlds was extremely liberating. Unlike the vast majority of people, I never completely stopped drawing after childhood. Admittedly, I have tried out many different techniques and methods, but for the past twenty years I have primarily worked with drawing as a medium. I use paintmarkers, acrylic paint on pump marker, with paper as a base. In this way, I can mix my own colors, and sometimes I feel that I am moving in the borderland between painting and drawing.
TF: How do you use drawing in your work? Tell us a little about your work process!
AL: My work process usually always consists of several types of drawing techniques, and I always work with many different drawings at the same time. It can start with some small sketches or doodles, which I scan into the computer. Otherwise, it also often happens that I find motifs on the internet, or use my own photographs. I process the motifs digitally, with both raster and vector-based applications. In addition to my art education, I also have a background in computer-aided construction drawing, and have worked with both engineering drawings and architecture. I use both 3d and 2d programs in the design of the motifs, and the fact that they are processed digitally has a lot to say aesthetically for the final result. I am interested in how the visual is linked to mathematics and geometry. I then print it out and transfer it to paper via a light table. Once that is done, the analog process starts. Then I use a caliper and a ruler, but mostly freehand drawing. My method is associative, and although I have a plan for the work, changes and mutations happen along the way. I constantly make aesthetic judgments, and colours, patterns, composition and symmetry are important elements. The result is often detailed images with a lot of information.
TF: What inspires you? Do you work from a theme?
AL: My starting point is that any work of art should be political at one level or another. With this as a basic attitude, I have a wide field of interest.
Themes that interest me are fear and dystopias, virtuality and artificial intelligence, body and biology, and what happens at the intersection between the technological and the organic. My pictures are subjective interpretations of these phenomena.
TF: What are you currently working on?
AL: I usually work with the standard 50 x 65 cm format because it is simply convenient for my drawing table and my arms. But lately I've been experimenting with going up in format. I do this by putting nine sheets in the aforementioned standard format together as modules for a larger image. I have recently posted an example of this on my website.
TF: What does drawing mean for you / your work?
AL: For me, drawing is immersion and reflection. I spend a long time on each picture, preferably several weeks, and this calm way of working suits me perfectly.
TF: Tell us a little about your work in Tegnerforbundet's sales department!
AL: I Tegnerforbundet I have two pictures, both of which illustrate much of what I have described above.
In Plan Voisin #3 , Le Corbusier's unrealized project Plan Voisin is an important source of inspiration. The brutal, cold and inhuman nature of this project makes Le Corbusier's utopia a bleak dystopia for me. On the other hand, I am positively inspired by Constant Nieuwenhuy's project New Babylon, an anti-capitalist city that hangs in the air, created for Homo Ludens; the playful man.
Lost in Translation imagines a kind of tree or hierarchy of neural networks. Certain forms of artificial intelligence are inspired by and mimic neural networks in the brain. A machine has the ability to process huge amounts of information, to achieve perfection. The brain, on the other hand, makes mistakes. These fallacies, misunderstandings and weaknesses that are typical of the human being disappear in technology.
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Available works by Andreas Lærum in the online store .
