Per Adolfsen has an eye for the beauty of landscapes, which he depicts in pencil and crayon drawings. Influenced by Edvard Munch’s expressionist style, Adolfsen renders unusual color schemes and swirling patterns and textures to create hallucinatory images that vibrate with energy. Though Adolfsen’s figurative illustrations often appear crude, they are very precise if not accurate in color. In his drawing By the Canal (2020), bright orange and magenta rocks nestle within a larger pile of black and brown rocks. The colors are outlandish, but the specificity of the landscape makes it thoroughly believable. Adolfsen’s work has been shown in group and solo exhibitions in Denmark, as well as in New York, Dusseldorf, and Shanghai.

 

Per Adolfsen lives and works in Odense, Denmark, where he was born in 1964.