There is flow in Knud Odde’s paintings. A lightness, something immediately captivating, attracting. In its own way a parallel to the Pop Art look of surface, its alluring exterior. A suggestive membrane without real flesh and blood, but with the inherent sensual character of seduction. If you have sensed the tone once, you will love it: the Swiss artist Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918) and his beautiful female figures, usually drawn in black contour lines, carried into this century by J.F. Willumsen, the freebooter with the expressive coloring; J.A. Jericau (1890-1916) and his crazy, surreal tableaus.

A mixture of style and anti-style, taste and tastelessness. Continually in a cross-field between adaptation and confrontation. Knud Odde’s paintings are organic, fertile. Line follows line, ornamentally. Which is in sharp contrast to the fact that his art is often characterized as decadent. Offhand, this is exclusively due to his often sexual world of motifs that takes over with its magical power. Naked bodies, the gender, the way of showing things, the exhibitionism, if you will. We have girls’ and boys’ bodies, nylon stockings and shoes. Based on photographs so that the fetishism appears even clearer.

The choice of personalities often plays on the gender-related ambiguity (feminine men and masculine women). The portraits range from anonymous human beings to many of the great artists of the 19th and 20th centuries. The authors Hans Christian Andersen, William Burroughs, Bret Easton Ellis, Arthur Rimbaud, the rock poets Henry Rollins, Patti Smith and the country musician Hank Williams. The portraits are – like Knud Odde’s paintings in general – like “a Souvenir From a Dream”, thanks to Tom Verlaine. On this background, you might have been surprised when Knud Odde presented a completely new series of paintings in 1998 where apparently nothing was left of his special style. Canvas after canvas with relatively homogeneous lines. All but gone was the figurative painting; these horizontal layers of color made up a new object: landscapes. Seen from the outside, strangely monotone, toned down earth colors, and without the usual suggestive style, without sex, without all the loveable qualities about his tone.

One of the main series is “At Klarskov, Korsoer, Denmark, I-VI”, landscapes with dominating skies. The land, the thin layer of earth, almost non-existent in comparison with the water. This is where Knud Odde presumably finds the opportunities of the nuances. These paintings certainly had their own qualities, but compared to the previous appealingly beautiful paintings, they appeared meager. From having studied all others, from having perfected a style – and ensured its success – he was suddenly faced with a reversed world of images. Almost like a cleansing process for all the media images that had appeared.

A more “Danish” painting. The straight lines of the flat landscape; the sky, the ocean, the beach and the field. An almost meta-like landscape. A meditative room that could hardly be further away from his actual figurative paintings. Knud Odde’s landscapes are not romantic, there is no mystique, no sensuality or no dream visions. In contrast to the anathematized and stylized classicism and the modern rationalism, his landscapes appear completely clear. It is not even necessary to create any kind of credibility; the paintings have been defined as landscape paintings. No difference is made between cultivated nature and the landscape marked by “un-nature” such as wind turbine farms, bunkers, railroad tracks, etc.

The paintings seem to be full of contrast, but the quality of – and the love of – Odde’s landscape paintings do not really arise until the project is an immediately finished chapter. Suddenly, the lines were no longer alone, suddenly something took place amongst them, so to speak, contours of something else appeared; houses, small buildings, etc. Knud Odde was on the way to rediscovering his figurative direction. The “empty” landscape paintings suddenly seemed to be the result of a conscious cleansing process, a carthasis. The slate was to be wiped clean.

Strangely enough, Knud Odde’s starting point is the punk scene which was followed by the international, “wild painting” in the beginning of the 1980s, and then subsequently to learn from Danish traditions to a larger and larger extent. You currently sense not only an eccentric J.F. Willumsen, but also a far more quiet Palle Nielsen. Buildings appear and begin to obtain character. First and foremost in relation to the room. Knud Odde is just as absorbed by spaces and surfaces as by the sky and ocean. On the other hand, the buildings, in particular, get the characteristic black contour lines back. Knud Odde has always been upfront about finding his basic motifs among other artists’ works or illustrative materials in general. He processes these “objet trouvès”, adopts the paintings and makes them his own. He brings a soul to the motifs, gives them their own life.

In 1999, the buildings started to appear in the landscape, but without a real pictorial distance or closeness. It seems as if all starting points, all sources are equally good. Distance and closeness have equal values. The buildings are thoroughly constructed too. True, there are photographs and other inspirational sources, but individual elements are emphasized, silhouettes are outlined, etc. Incidentally, the buildings most of all get to resemble theatrical back drops as they obtain a more and more central part of the landscape which in turn becomes less and less important. Almost a decorative work-around. Certain houses are simple, others far more complex. And the land-scape is transferred to peripheral elements as spaces, clean surfaces or patterns.

Buildings are of course represented as houses, but often have the nature of individual works such as silos, light houses and churches. Knud Odde has this preference for the absurd, the abnormal. The latter as part of a more and more religious iconography. Not necessarily because he is religious, but the iconography is seen from an emblematic point of view. The mythology of the church as well as its architecture own this immediate fascination: the buildings are both raw, yet refined, foreign yet straightforward. They appear to be erect in the clean drawing style of the landscape. As an indentation of the cleansing process.

While all of this has taken place the human beings have also disappeared and reappeared. The two authors Rainer Maria Rilke and Marguerite Duras have been revived by a gentle hand. Rilke with a moustache, introverted with a lowered head. Knud Odde chooses from a wide spectrum, the Pop Art’s right to bring diverse objects into one big hotchpotch still applies. And the number of portraits seems to be never-ending, just as the number of icons cannot be exhausted. So far from the still life of the landscapes. So far from the occasional cathedral-like expression of the buildings.

“Gothlight” was the name of one of his most recent exhibitions, “gothic light”, with a self-chosen anachronistic dream vision. Knud Odde continually challenges the portrait as well as the person in the paintings. In spite of the glamour, the sleekness, the superficial and the lightness. In spite of the artistic flow, he succeeds in creating sensi-bility. He is with his persons. Dated but still with a refreshing, modern power.

Lars Schwander, May, 2000.