Christoffersen, Uffe (1947- )

"Why I paint Tigers? Because they are beautiful animals. Because they continue to fascinate me. Because they are all over the world. Because they can still get me to paint good pictures. But put so straight that moti ¬ vet basically is subordinate to any painter-what actual painting never is. A good painter can, in principle, paint a glass of water all his life and continue to make interesting pictures. He himself is changing course, and the light is changing all the time. That he will always make new know ¬ pictures. And he is a really good painter, is the subject totally subordinate, "says Uffe Christoffersen. 

Magazine ART visited the painter in the small village of Fontareches in Provence in the South of France. For sixteen years ago he moved here with his wife, Annette Hoff-Jessen, who is also a painter. Behind him was already a long career as a painter, which culminated in the year in which he was a member of the artist group Violet Sun, a group that was everyone's "darling" at that time, in the 1970s and 1980s. Included in the Group was, among other things. Niels Reumert, Obioha, Per Bågøe, Jørgen Teik Hansen, Jørgen Haugen Jo ¬ h-and therefore Uffe Christoffersen.

After Violet Sun
Violet Sun was a party, as long as it lasted. But when the group disbanded in 1988, it was difficult for several of the Group's with ¬ limbs to find their own ground again.

"I was opposed to the fact that we stopped. But on the other hand, had to admit that we might have had our time. Anyway I felt a restlessness afterwards, as did that I began to reevaluate what I wanted as a painter. Slowly the idea began to take shape, that I could move, so I and my wife went to southern France and began to look for that place to live and work. We found the place in a small town, Fontareches, whose origin goes back to Roman times. Here we found an old ruin of a House, as we have since restored and furnished, so today we have each our Studio and really have the space to develop ourselves, "says Uffe Christoffersen.

The stay in France has meant a lot for his painting:
"The light is quite different than in Denmark. More clearly, more harshly, because the Sun is higher in the sky. When the Mistral-the strong wind that goes downward the country fan, it's as if, it cleans everything and makes the landscape more sharply. Vegeta ¬ employment situation is also quite different from the big-eczema ¬ pelvis vineyards around us, and it characterizes the colors again, "says the artist.

Animal painters
Animals have always been a painter of art's most durable motifs. Tigers, Lions, oxen and Eagle are among the best-loved animal motifs throughout history. In itself, but also as symbols. For example, rulers have been depicted as lions or Eagles and opposite have donkeys and snakes symbolised stupid or snow ¬ Dyke characteristics of a human being.
For Uffe Christoffersen has Tiger's symbolic significance never played a role. Yet he recently began to take an interest in old fables about Tigers.
"I began to delve into old Aesop's fables about animals, especially Tigers, and went on to La Fontaine, as have barley ¬ get ahead on Aesop. It ended with a long series of pictures, which took as its starting point the small Fables. Not because I would illustrate the individual as such, but rather download fable nourishment from it. It is also the case that many for the rest of fablerne is very pictorial in their narrative And I could use, "says Uffe Chri ¬ stoffersen.
On Corners this year, showed the artist exhibition a large number of its tiger ¬ fable-images-they must evidently have hit the spot for they were all sold.

The first tiger
But when popped tiger scene with Uffe Christoffersen. It can be traced all the way back to his childhood. He move ¬ firmed to Africa as a 7-year-old. Here was gan ¬ receive no Tigers, but the wildlife was all the time a present problem. In the syvåriges imagination assumed the wild beasts huge proportions and became a blurry mixture of fear and fascination.
"More specifically showed the Tiger up, when I went to the Art Academy in Queue ¬ Copenhagen. After my first period I was a student at the arts educational school at Helge Bertram. We worked on a time-point with color separations and was sent off to the Zoo to photograph animals. I chose to photograph Tigers in their cages and were here deeply fascinated by the large beautiful animals trudged restless around in their cages. Alone to regard color game in their stripes, set up against the black bars, it was beautiful, "remembers Uffe Chri ¬ stoffersen.
He was sold. He had found "his motive". Subsequently he took several times in addition to the Zoo in order to draw the powerful animals.
"I discovered more and more, that tig ¬ clean had everything you could ask of a good image: exciting proportionality ¬ tions, internal force, movement, beauty and mystery," says the artist.

The color's power
Uffe Christoffersen is obviously an ex ¬ pressiv painter. And his primary weapon is the color. And here he is scientific in his passion
"I have for example been heavily occupied by ochre. I have found in several variants down here in the South of France, where I've visited more ochre fractures, in order to study the color and its constituents. In one of the ochre quarries, in Roussillon, so I, inter alia, how okkeren lit up in the cliffs in the form of large stripes. Since I am certain to leave the vertical okkerstri ¬ ber, who lit up the yellow and red in the Sun, a starting point for my paintings, "to ¬ count Uffe Christoffersen.
He is currently affiliated with three galleries in Denmark: Galerie Annette Birch in Copenhagen, Gallery Gl. Camps in the Camps and the Gallery Jørgen Østergaard in Ikast. And his images are pretty much every time ripped off the walls of eager customers. You call it success. Uffe Christoffer ¬ sen has also repeatedly exhibited at Danish art museums.
The Tigers are in the real world, an endangered species. Uffe Christoffersen's image in the world are they loved and sought after. And their ROAR fascinates and enchants.

Ole Lindboe