THE TRAMP AND THE PRINCESS

Once a very long time ago, I attended an exhibition by Roger Risberg at an Art gallery in the southern part of Stockholm. When he saw me, he grabbed me by the arm and dragged me away to a small cubbyhole out on the stairwell; there he took out a painting of a face, a face larger than life. It was composed using a technique, which was so fragile that I literally could see the picture crumble away in front of my eyes. Roger had possibly gotten his impressions and ideas from his friend and mentor Lars Hillersberg, when it came to technique, it was something one should not care too much about. However it was not the crumbled away look that was the first impression, but rather the bewildered experiences of a live face, without any, what so ever protective mechanisms. That painting I saw there in the semi dark stairwell I cannot account for in detail, no more than the flakes that fell from the surface like a gentle snowfall, however the gaze from the picture searching for mine, I can recall anytime.
Afterwards it has struck me, that it was like we were in the painting by Roger Risberg, the artist, the painting an I were in a non existing room, in a non existing city and landscape. It was a time of condensed presence, far away from the time and the place we were at. The spell was broken when I asked him why he did not show the portrait. I should understand, that that would not work! : With no further explanation.

The gaze from the portrait is following me, when I see his red horses against black backgrounds, without seemingly knowing where they belong or his sarcastic laughing fellows, with the occasional lifted glass. There has never been rooms or landscapes for them to reside in. Roger Risberg has given them a home in his paintings, with the monochrome backgrounds.

When a longer duration of illness took away Roger Risberg’s access to the studios for painting he turned to drawing as a way of expression. The sixty drawings that are shown in this book, covers almost ten years of production. They have been produced far away from the Swedish art life, which otherwise tried to hold the artist close to its “breast”. Certainly one recognizes some of the “icons” from the earlier paintings, but as a whole, it is something more private that is played out in these drawings. He daydreams and fantasizes, with the pen in his hand. The dreams can be about the safety that is found in the celebration of the Day of The Swedish Flag, the dancing around the Midsummer Pole or the celebration of Christmas and Lucia day. It is also about the woman, who is large and safe, when going about her everyday tasks, as well as with her sexuality. In several of the drawings she wears a princess crown, as a continuation of her head, she takes her place and reigns in her environment, all the while the men are mostly small and pitiful.
The man dreams about a compensation for his exposed position: “Imagine if I had a sable, imagine if I had a horse. Gustaf Adolf”. He even claims a place in the ruling dynasty by way of adding the monogram G VII A. The thoughts unavoidably drift back to the late Ernst Josephson, with his lists of Kings and obstinate interpretations of the Swedish history, but where Josephson drifted into dazzling reinterpretations of what had happened, Roger Risberg creates a safeguard for his own existential vulnerability.
Should one place Roger Risberg in the tradition of Swedish drawing artists, the comparison with Gurr springs to mind. If we turn around the roles in the classical drawing of the small girl that looks up at the large man and says: “If uncle follows me into the woods uncle will get a beer”, then you will find both Roger Risberg’s artistic lines as well as his furtive humor there. In one of the latest drawings it is actually his alter ego, the sulky pony that has grown up and now stands tall in front of a small girl. It is as if he by sheer force tries to restore a balance that was lost someway along the road, which was lined with all these strong women with breasts like torpedo points and self-assured smiles on there lips.
In a few of the drawings there is also an attempt to recapture a room, a landscape where he belongs. It is a scenery that smiles, with an ocean, archipelago, boats and lighthouses, the opposite pole to the monochrome limbo that encloses the horses and the people in the paintings.

I know very little about the different worlds, that the eye could view from the cubby-hole in the south of Stockholm, and of the man that I met that time, long ago, but the drawings bear witness of a continues search for a room and a spirit of community to exist within.

Stockholm, Dec. 2007
Olle Granath

Translated by Anette Lindegaard