Bjarne Melgaard
It has often been said that Bjarne Melgaard's exhibitions resemble a frontal assault on the viewer: people are challenged in their margin of tolerance in their encounter with his works, rummaging borders - both formally and thematically.
Melgaard's works often take their point of departure in certain central motives and personages - both fictitious and non-fictitious. They constitute alter egos of a kind, within which the artist can clothe himself: the Lightbulb man, Rudolf Valentino, Aka Raul, Bernard St'Summiere, Rob Bo'bel and Joey Stefano. Often characters of importance to Melgaard’s own life are part of his artistic universe, for example his Chihuahua dog, Jasmin.
Both Melgaard’s paintings and drawings, from his exhibition in 2001, presented the contrast between the soft expressionistic line of the pencil and the sexual activity of the figuration. For example the juxtaposition of a cliché-filled Olivia Newton John lyric with the image of a bleeding male body having been succumbed to S/M. With these clashes of style and expression, Melgaard is best characterised as a barrier-breaking artist. The texts applied by Melgaard in his installation at Galleri Faurschou, were writings of very private nature, written from the perspective of a personal narrative where the boundaries between the private and the public, as well as that of the fictive and the real are dissolved, or blurred, as a result.
Bjarne Melgaard’s second solo exhibition at Galleri Faurschou in 2005 was an exhibition underlining his excellent ability to create visually expressive and highly sensuous settings. Paintings, drawings, film, animation, photographs, furniture and other objects were combined in an aesthetically striking and very personal universe. In these later paintings, Bjarne Melgaard is striking a slightly softer tone. Present is a good deal of innocence, especially in the Chihuahua portraits and a huge amount of humour in the drawings. In his latest paintings Melgaard found it important to rediscover his own initial experience when painting: As a free and joyful process where the stroke of the brush is governed by the direct response to the canvas surface. These paintings are therefore more typical for Melgaard than ever: Extremely expressive and dark - combined with playful poetic brush strokes in light clear colours. Masculine sexuality and identity are continually revolving themes in Bjarne Melgaard’s works of art. Other issues currently dominating our culture, like the phenomenon of prolonged adolescence, have also been under his scrutiny.
Bjarne Melgaard stands for a contemporary and powerful expressionism, that does not leave its viewer in a lurch of indifference. The power and the vigour present in Bjarne Melgaard's work strikes the viewer. This and his excellent capacity for turning the whole gallery space into an aesthetically inviting atmosphere in his exhibitions characterises him as an artist.