| Canuto Kallan | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Canuto Tsalidis Kallan |
| Born | 16 December 1960 Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Nationality | Danish |
| Field | Painting, Drawing, Printmaking, |
| Training | Athens School of Fine Arts, Technical University of Denmark |
Canuto Kallan [1][2] is a visual artist, born in Copenhagen, Denmark. He studied painting and printmaking at the Athens School of Fine Arts,[3] Greece. He holds a Master of Science in Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark and is trained as a cabinet-maker(awarded a Silver Medal for Woodworking).
Canuto Kallan’s art expresses nostalgia for the return to the primal instincts, the liberation from the constraints of reason and the importance of the very act of painting. His paintings are clearly an integrated part of the long tradition of Modernism, but they also reflect the environment in which he lives, in terms of place and time. His landscapes rendered with fragmented surfaces and complementary sharp colours reveal his studies on Paul Cézanne and the Cubists' analytical idiom, as well as mainly on Expressionism, and at the same time exhibit a tender lyricism through their rhythm. Landscapes painted with the aggressive brushstrokes of the Neue Wilden, commenting on reality with a subtle irony. The simplicity of his figures lends them liveliness and a rhythm which excites the viewers' eyes into a constant state of alertness and keeps their interest intact. Canuto Kallan’s figures often convey strong messages of demonstration and social criticism and bring the viewer face to face with the harsh side of the contemporary human existence, the unbalanced, violent relation of humans with society, nature and themselves. The distortion of the shapes aims at revealing the essence of the matters and brings to light the corruption which prevails in today’s human relations. He attempts, like the politically focused Asger Jorn, co-founder of some of the most important movements of the 20th century, like the CoBrA or Situationism to ground his art in life, having at the same time released it from the dark, demonic mysticism of the north. In Canuto Kallan’s works the joy of creation comes to life through his spontaneity and imagination and the free and improvisational way in which he handles the medium. The colour which he handles in a dynamic way: gestural expression soaked by the fierce light of the Mediterranean and the gentleness of the idiosyncrasy of its world. It infiltrates into the unconscious depths of human existence and illuminates hard reality without passion and without destroying the human tinge and measure. Whether seen as a whole or separately, Canuto Kallan’s multi-figural compositions create comparisons and cohesions, and obtain a narrative quality, but they also constitute autonomous creations with multiple “readings”. Allegories and metaphors fuse with emotions that range from jubilation to anguish, transforming the painter’s and the viewers personal experience into a universal possession.