Eirik Lyster (1985) works with drawing, sculpture and performance, and has been a member of Tegnerforbundet since 2017. Lyster's cleverly executed drawings refer to a fairytale-like yet bizarre world. The creatures in his imagery are often recognizable from fairy tales and childhood, such as My Little Pony characters, puppies, balloon animals, rainbows and unicorns. These positively connotated motifs are reinforced by a color palette consisting of soft pastel tones and the colors of the rainbow. A closer look at the works reveals that something is amiss. There are references to both male and female genitalia, blood pouring out of the portrayed figures' body parts, and their eyes are transformed into carnivorous black holes. In this way, the sweet and seemingly innocent world of Eirik Lyster's drawings becomes a kind of strange and dystopian, but at the same time beautiful and poetic nightmare, which is the distinctive quality of Lyster's work.
Eirik Lyster lives and works in Oslo.
More information can be found on Eirik Lyster 's website .
TF: Eirik, can you tell us a bit about your artistic work?
EL: I mainly work with drawing, but also sculpture and performance. My works are metaphorical and poetic with a repetitive aesthetic that is often associated with the commercial, to tell a varying content further. I can always talk about what is the essence and thought behind a work, but analyzing it down to the smallest detail feels like I'm trying to describe a dream or a nightmare. Just as many layers and just as complex. Everything is perishable and I think it is interesting to create something that will live longer than a human life, and I am careful to use quality materials such as acid-free and light-resistant paper. I also frame the drawings in wooden frames with museum glass (non-reflective glass with 98% UV protection).
TF: How do you use drawing in your work? Tell us a little about your work process!
EL: Drawings come to me very clearly before I start working and it has in many ways felt like an instinct to me. I've tested out several pens, but the one I'm most comfortable with is a normal dry ballpoint pen, because it has some blue tones that I want to have in my line and you have more control than with a wetter pen. I also draw with acrylic pen and colored pencil, but I mostly use these for coloring and drawing backgrounds in my works. It has become more important for me to trust my line and that everything should not be so perfected, but rawer and less polished. During the process I have to stop a few times and make a choice which direction an artwork should take. Should I go one way where it feels safe and comfortable, or should I go the other way where it's a bit jarring and I'm moving in unfamiliar terrain. Over the years, I have learned to always go where it is jarring and feels unfamiliar and from experience that is where I find what I want to create. The weirdest parts of me are also the most interesting, I think, and it's a good feeling to figure this out and trust it. It happens that I get a drawing in my head when I have turned off the light for the evening to sleep and then I have to get up to quickly sketch it down before it disappears. I can also clearly sense when a piece of art I've been looking for is on its way. It feels a bit like walking into a darkness and in front of me somewhere I can sense, smell, feel that something is approaching and I just have to continue what I'm doing until what I'm looking for is in front of me. My drawing "Blue Hour" is an artwork of this kind that I have been looking for for a long time. I can always draw a drawing, but that's not what it's about for me, and I'm always working to make the "next" drawing, which I think is important in my artistry. When a new door has opened, it is as if I have been given a tool to look into something new, a kind of veil that has lifted and a drawing rarely comes alone, but in series. Certain drawings can also take several years to complete because they were never quite mature enough to come out into the physical world yet. For example, a work called "Diamonds and demons" I started in 2014, but it was not finished until 2017. Not because of the size of the drawing, but it never felt quite ready. Sometimes sharpening something is the most complicated thing.
TF: What inspires you? Do you work from a theme?
EL: I often work with themes such as pop culture, identity, death and personal iconography. The palette in my drawings is inspired by, among other things, bruises on animal carcasses. How blood transfers to fur, bones, skin and forms a kind of washed-out rainbow on the body where there is blood leakage. The Nordic landscape and fauna also inspire me a lot.
TF: What are you currently working on?
EL: I have a big long-term collaboration with the band Highasakite and my drawings are to be seen on their upcoming releases. So far the singles "Out Of Order", "Elastic State Of Mind", "I Call Bullshit" have been released and I also hand-drawn their new logo. I've liked the band for a long time so it's an incredibly good feeling to work with someone whose work I admire and who likes me back. It feels very clean and right in a way. Vocalist Ingrid Helene Håvik is one of my favorite songwriters and vocalists. I can in many ways identify with her creative decisions and the soundscape of Highasakite, how it sounds so big and beautiful and once you listen closer it's quite dark. I also have this approach in my artwork.
TF: What does drawing mean to you and your work?
EL: I have drawn all my life and it is a way of expressing myself where words are not enough, and I cannot remember a time without it. I have always had a deep desire and need to live and die in my own dreams, instead of being dead in someone else's reality. Drawing is also important in an increasingly fast-paced world, I think, where drawing is the complete opposite of being a keystroke and a filter away from a result. You have to stop, spend hours alone and there is no other way out than to do work that requires a lot of time and concentration. I have a fairly high work ethic, so when I'm in a period with a lot of work, I'm the kind who can be fine by myself for several days. Alone time is also important to me.
TF: Tell us a little about your work in Tegnerforbundet's sales department!
EL: I made "Red Carpet" and "Garden Of Meat" in 2016. They are, among other things, inspired by how beauty in nature is surrounded by death and corruption and how it can be compared to pop culture and the media's focus on objects and fame as a phenomenon. In both drawings you can also see parts of my balloon animals that I call "Blood Ballons": In "Red Carpet" a whole balloon animal split in two and in "Garden Of Meat" in the form of pieces that form a halo. This is inspired by the funeral of Marilyn Monroe in 1962, who even after her death continues to sparkle, in a coffin surrounded by flowers, people and flash rain from all the paparazzi. Celebrities are reduced to a type of entertainment where it is easy to forget that there is a human being behind all the glitter. In many ways like Marilyn Monroe, flesh and blood, but who became a kind of "Blood Balloon" belonging to pop culture.
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For available works by Eirik Lyster in the Tegnerforbundet's sales department and online store click here .
