Welcome

Peter Borotinskij is one of the most important contemporary Nordic artists. Born in Vasa in Finland in 1948 and normally resident in Sweden since 1976, he received little formal training and, perhaps partially for that reason, escaped the conformist pressures of Scandinavian art schools, whose alumni so often produce pale imitations of works by popular American and Western European trend-setters.

P.B.’s works though, are very much original and home-grown products of his native land, spartan, sharply linear and deeply colouristic. They are, however, not merely decorative in a naivistic way. Many of them, indeed, whether in oil, gouache or graphics, possess a deep spiritual content which not only portrays the soul, if you will, of the Nordic but hints at universal existential realities as well.

If the Dane Vilhelm Hammershøi and the Swede Reinhold Ljunggren can be seen as his precursors, P.B. has given his paintings a religious dimension which harks back to his Russian Orthodox roots.

Many of them are iconic in imagery, yet humour seems rarely absent from even his most serious works. His gold-framed crucifixion (1991) is perhaps most extreme: a suspended Christ juxtaposed against a bleak horizon, on which a nuclear reactor can just be seen, is framed by a guilt distended oval. Upon closer investigation this frame shows itself to be a lavatory seat. Blasphemy? No, not at all, for upon opening it, the viewer’s own face is reflected in the mirror positioned within the basin! Guilt rests with the viewer and not the crucified Lord, whose earth is tortured by man’s hubris and disrespect.

Neil Kent
B.A. (Hons.) Cantab., M.A. Cantab., Fil dr Uppsala