05.01.23
01.01.23
17.12.22
“Girl in livingroom”
15.12.22
“Orchid in livingroom”
09.12.22
November/december:
15.11.2022
New zine, “Barfordet”:
23.10.2022
October works:
09.10.2022
Barefoot series
12.09.2022
September work:
11.09.2022
Exhibition in Vanløse 11.09. – 16.10.22
29.08.2022
Barefoot (Portrait series, August 2022).
26.08.2022
August works:
26.08.2022
I’ve finished Lars Bo Nørgaards and my book “Et år i Sibirien”.
02.08.2022
Efterklang July – august 2022
Mimetic Moments July 2022
MIMOSA july 2022
09.07.2022
De blumen – 2
08.07.2022
De blumen
07.07.2022
Julywind
01.07.2022
24.06.22
Midsummer
22.06.22
Livingroom corner step 1 and 2
19.06.2022
Sommerspejl.
13.06.2022
Junislør
11.06.22
Light Night
08.06.2022
“Evening fire”
“Klang af ting i beton”.
16.05.2022
A good vernissage.
04.05.2022
Getting there.
27.04.2022
And also about this “Mirror”.
25.04.2022
Truly happy about this “White Sun”.
23.04.2022
22.04.2022
Blue sun
19.04.22
Blue april
19.04.22
Press – release (in danish) Klang af ting i beton.
”Klang af ting i beton” – en ny udstilling i Galleri Underkant skal bygge bro imellem hverdagen på Kofoeds Skole og den omkring liggende by.
Billedkunstner Nikolaj Callesens nye udstilling ”Klang af ting i beton”, er blevet til over en 18 måneders periode. Galleri Underkant der er beliggende i en stor kælder af beton under Kofoeds skole, udgør rammen for en lang række af Nikolaj Callesens fotografiske og maleriske værker der til sammen med indsamlede ting som grene, sten og jernrør, er installeret i en samlet helhed. Nikolaj Callesen siger selv om udstillingen, ”Jeg vil gerne åbne poetiske rum for refleksion over hvordan vi relaterer til hinanden og vores omverden. Alle disse ting og værker bærer en værdi for mig som indsamler og skaber, jeg har forholdt mig til dem, bemalet dem, eller lignende, og på den måde ønsker jeg at de går i en visuel dialog med de indrammede værker på væggen, og åbner for associationer og refleksioner hos beskueren”. Galleri Underkant fejrer i dette forår to års jubilæum, og med udstillingen af Nikolaj Callesen ønsker galleriet at bygge videre på de bånd og udvekslinger der findes imellem hverdagen på skolen og den omkringliggende by. Som Robert Olsen forstander for Kofoeds Skole udtaler: ”Muligheden for kreativ skaben og det at vokse som menneske og mestre sin livssituation er central i Kofoeds Skoles ønske om at kunne yde hjælp til selvhjælp for udsatte borgere. Det er fra skolens side ønsket med udstillingen at sætte fokus på det nære forhold mellem kunst og skrøbelighed, og hvorledes vi kan mødes på tværs og udvikle fællesskaber der kan rumme begge dele.”
Nikolaj Callesen født 1976, er uddannet indenfor antropologi og kunstfotografi bl.a. på Glasgow School of Art og arbejder primært med fotografi, maleri og installation.
Kofoeds Skole blev oprettet i 1928, og tilbyder socialt udsatte mennesker nye muligheder for at hjælpe sig selv til et bedre liv, ud fra princippet om hjælp til selvhjælp. Kofoeds Skole har afdelinger i København, Aarhus, Aalborg og Nuuk.
Udstillingen er støttet af: Kofoeds Skole, 15. juni fonden, Amager Øst Lokaludvalg, Aage og Johanne Louis Hansens fond og Grosserer L.F. Foghts fond,
Udstillingen er åben for offentligheden samt elever og ansatte på Kofoeds Skole alle hverdage ml. 9 og 15. Fredag 9-12.30. Fernisering torsdag d. 12. maj kl. 15-17. Rundvisning ved Nikolaj Callesen fredag d. 20. maj kl. 13- 14.30. Lørdagsåbent i udstillingen v. Nikolaj Callesen lørdag d. 4. juni kl. 10-14 samt lørdag d. 2. juli kl. 10-14.
19.04.2022
April song – now in danish.
19.04.2022
“Klang af ting i beton” 12.may
12.04.22
Tøbrud
21.03.2022
“By the moor”
14.03.2022
Autumn Light:
11.03.2022
Egebjerghuse – Værløse
10.03.2022
“Winter in park”
08.02.22
“Road thorugh hilly landscape”.
07.03.2022
“Augustmorning”.
01.03.2022
“Sun haze”
01.03.2022
Nw photobook out.
“Dslr”.
28.02.2022
More Uniques
“Goodyear” and “Julyevening”.
21.02.22
“Goodyear” – Unique
21.02.22
Writing – “South”.
20.02.22
More uniques.
“By the Bog”.
16.02.2022
My first unique artwork.
“Smoky Kitchen cabinet door”
15.02.2022
Before noon at station
14.02.2022
Seagull Sky
10.02.2022
“Pale blue” / “Light Green”
09.02.2022
08.02.2022
“Down by the Lake”
06.02.2022
“Forestdragon”
.
05.02.2022
“Summer After Noon”
0.2.02.2022
Ravnsholt Skov #2
29.01.2022
Gribskov #3
26.01.2022
Hareskov #11
23.01.2022
Utterslev Mose #4
20.01.2022
Before noon above Emdrup.
17.01.2022
Skodsborg #10
Bolandsvej #16
13.01.2022
Wintergoddess
11.01.2022
Bagsværd Sø #1
Bagsværd Sø #1(2)
06.01.2022
Islandsbrygge #2
Step two and three.
06.01.2022
Bagsværd Sø
01.01.2022
Well that is also how it is sometimes..
Happy new Year, looking forward to see you all.
Leonard Cohen. Hallelujah.
30.12.2021
Late december works.
22.12.2021
Trying out new titles. Here: Paint-sky-wall#1.
13.12.2021
Wow. Productive day.
Hareskov #12
Bolandsvej #14
10.12.2021
På besøg i hovedstaden i 1997. 20 år gammel. Et par dage før take off, via Moskva til Havana. Min opdagelsesrejse, mit eventyr, min tagen vare på min udflugtslængsel, mit must. Går i vinteraftenens varme skær af fortættet atmosfære fra tusindvis af lanterner og lamper på Christiania, med min kommende rejsefælle Christian Henningsen. Ud i natten bølger de vilde og blide toner af Byens Hotel fra Kim Larsens værsgo album. Alt er sat i scene og jeg er fyldt til bristepunktet af forventningens øjeblikkelige lykke. 
07.12.2021
Raadvad #6
06.12.2021
Hareskov #9
28.11.2021
Flintholm #1
28.11.2021
Lensculture review:
..What does this make us feel? The easiest to say is that it has a lovely color palette. But is just this what caught our attention? Or is it more. If we think of it we will feel that there is more but when we try to grasp it slips away, isn’t it? But we can still feel it. The human mind is less inclined to employ things it cannot quantify. If we are taught and told only realistic representation matters, and we are taught a formula for the use of representation, we will come to believe and invest in this orthodoxy. But what about those unquantifiable, sublime, and hugely important abstract images? Realism is important. But unless the artist explores the mystery of the purely visual and its effect on the audience, I am not sure he or she is fully using the medium. ..
This is how your photography works, viscerally, not logically. So there is no reason for me to understand what I see in order to step into your world, but to feel. And I do feel. In addition, I feel that the pictures are the result of long hours of observation and experimentation with the means. If this is not art then what is art?
23.11.21
Hareskovby #3
18.11.21
Emdrup #1
14.11.21
Ding an sich/the thing in itself. (Lens Culture competition entry november 2021)
In my reading of Immanuel Kants term “Ding an sich”, it is about a modern paradigm. In this modern paradigm, one cannot know things, nature, things and phenomena around us, but we can measure it, make it intelligeble. With this term from the European enlightenment, one might say the contemporary splitting of man and nature, culture and surroundings is established. In my personal experience, this splitting doesnt make sense. We cannot master and make the world intelligeble in an abstract way, however far we have achieved in material properity this way. We actually experience, the world around us in a fundamentally relative way. I think my work and these images is about relating, about belonging, about being part of the world, not outside or mastering it. It is about a deep feeling of belonging when I walk in the forest, when I walk along the beaches, and also about this modern splitting of culture and nature, that in many ways are conditional. It is about melancholic longing, and the certain poetry that is opened accepting this longing or yeraning.
14.11.21
Nørrebro Station #1
11.11.21
Livingroom – Bolandsvej #2
This is a photograph of an acryllic painting of mine. I love the interplay of texture VS. Representation/flat print. I love to question the notion of original or unique VS. The expression in itself, with No importance given to the “copy condition” inherrent in Any photograph. And I love the moments, being there, just drawing/ painting, and I’m so in love with this proces that I cant lave it there, I need to photograph the drawing and rework digitally, what actually happened in that proces
05.11.21
Utterslev Mose #1
03.11.21
Nødebo #4
31.10.21
Nødebo #3
26.10.21
Electric Light (unedited)
26.10.21
Nødebo #1 og #2
22.10.21
Kbh NV
20.10.21
Ding an sich.
Man kan sige Kant dermed lægger grundlaget for et moderne paradigme. Baner vej for videnskabens tro på at vi kan måle tingen. Vi kan ikke kende den, vi kan gøre os begreb om den, men ikke kende. Dermed den moderne spaltning kan man sige mellem natur og kultur. Forestiller jeg mig.
15.10.21
Mølleåen #1
12.10.21
Between Skodsborg and Klampenborg, North of Copenhagen.
05.10.2021
Greve strand #2
01.10.2021
Farum Sø #3
27.09.2021
Hareskoven
26.09.2021
Hareskoven
22.09.21
Orø #2
09.09.2021
Absence of authenticity
05.09.2021
Utterslev Mose #2 and #2.2
24.08.2021
Lersøparken #1
14.08.2021
Sensation.
Imagery.
01.08.2021
Hommage a Asger Jorn
31.07.2021
Trip to Raadvad, north of Copenhagen, – we are light.
Vi er liv & lys
Vi er skygger & magi
Vi er hinandens alibi
Vi er liv & lys
Vi er kød & blod
Vi er sanser vi er magt
Vi er os selv med dødsforagt
Vi er kød & blod
Vi er skind & ben
Vi er drømme lagt på is
Vi er det tabte paradis
Vi er skind & ben
Vi er krop & sjæl
Vi er nerver vi er stål
Vi er støv i metermål
Vi er krop i sjæl
Alle går vi rundt & leder som besatte
Nogen finder noget & andre sig selv
Alle mister noget ingen kan erstatte
Nogen går omkring & slår tiden ihjel
Vi er liv & lys
Vi er gåder uden ord
Vi er perler på en snor
Vi er liv & lys
Vi er et & alt
Vi er nøgne vi er små
Vi er dem ingen tænker på
Vi er et & alt
Indian summer – C. V. Jørgensen
30.07.2021
Hareskov #7
26.07.2021
Gribsø #1
21.07.2021
Got a new camera, and very very happy with this work: Hareskov #7.
18.07.2021
Fælledparken #3
15.07.2021
Fælledparken #2
10.07.2021
Gl. Holte #1
08.07.2021
Eugene Atget 1857 – 1927. Was concerned with making timely pictures. We’re all, as photographers, it’s the essence of photography. We are in our time, it follows us, we mirror the contemporary world we are in, we seek openings to hold still, to understand, for a moment. It is a photographer-thing, we are facing the world, the one we see and experience in moments, frozen by the camera, re-experienced afterwards.When flipping through Atget’s large catalog of images from turn-of-the-century Paris and the surrounding area, the melancholy in the images is unavoidable. The interiors disappeared long ago, what Atget saw, existed 120 years ago. The empty Parisian streets, existed when he saw them, one morning or afternoon in 1905. It has disappeared, and is strangely irrelevant and actually also a little repulsive, to me, this dwelling on the vanished.But then he shines through, Atget. His gaze is lifted out of the temporal, once in a while, for me, when the light plays in the leaves, when it casts strange moving shadows on the stairs, in the streets, on the sidewalks. I am reminded of the past, that I am a child of it, that I build on it. 120 years ago, a photographer wandered the streets of Paris and did as I do now, he marvels, seeks openings and moments.That to me is Atget’s legacy, his document to me. The cycle of life, the variability, diversity, and interconnectedness of the world at the same time. Extended in time, held in timeless moments. The unmistakable location of the interiors and streets in the distant past reminds me of that – the moment, that this is where it happens.Or in the words of Robert Adams: ” Successive generations of people will be nourished to life, Atget apparently believes, by attention to the continuities of nature and culture – proof that modern times are never wholly new and thus never wholly lost.”.-
06.07.2021
Emdrup Søpark #5
04.07.2021
To my beloved father.
30.06.2021
Nærum #2
28.06.2021
Walls can’t speak.
27.06.2021
Værløse #1
24.06.2021
Gems from the city
22.06.2021
Gems from the forest (Hareskoven)
20.06.2021
Happy to have made this:
07.06.2021
Productive days:
Utterslev Mose #1:
Ægirsgade #1:
01.06.2021
Ryparken – Ydre Østerbro – Copenhagen
27.05.2021
Raadvad #2
23.05.2021
Portrait – woman.
08.05.2021
In space – tingfinder (“Thingfinder”)
05.05.2021
Dyssegårdsparken #1
03.05.2021
Det der interesserer mig i min billedkunst og i det hele taget er væren. Tilstedeværelse. Den tyske samfundsfilosof Hartmut Rosa, bruger et spændende begreb om det urgamle emne, nemlig: resonans. Fra musikkens begreber tales om en særlig stemthed. Når jeg “svinger” med min omverden.Jeg er optaget af at tage verden ind, af at overvældes, af at kaste mig ned i det bløde sommergæs, eller være på eventyr på hug med gennemblødte ømme knæ, mellem bregner og gennem morgenens dugvåde krat. Her mærker jeg verden, den verden der får mig til at trække vejret dybere f.eks. i skoven, eller ved mødet med horisontlinjen over havet.Jeg går gerne “all in”. Spørgsmålet er hvornår jeg bliver væltet omkuld, hvornår finder jeg balancen, den intense tilstedeværelse, med et andet menneske, i samtalen, eller alene, i vandringen, i naturen, eller i byen?Momentant, er der balance eller måske endog harmoni, selvfølgelig, i øjeblikke. Men det er der guldet er, og det jeg interesserer mig for at formidle kunstnerisk. Dette nærvær.Om det lader sig gøre, på den måde, to dimensionalt, er så et helt nyt spørgsmål, til videre fordybelse. Men jeg ønsker mig at blive rørt af kunst. Når jeg ikke kan røre billedet fysisk, skal det røre mig. Helst helt inde over solar plexus. Det tror jeg på et billede kan. Og det går jeg efter.
28.04.2021
26.04.2021
26.04.2021
Hareskov:
24.04.2021
words:
“In the meantime” – consists of a series of photo-based works which in poetic-subjective-expressive strokes, observations, enlargements and framings seek to convey a presence and an emotional impact, and at the same time ask if photographs can even do this? “In the meantime” are personal existential visual expressions and perspectivated abstractions based on the artist’s own journeys in the deep presence of the forests around Copenhagen – along local beaches and lake shores, on streets, squares and alleys in the city’s social and architectural densities. The works are presented on their own terms and at the same time work together thematically as an exhibition in various possible levels.
18.04.2021
15.04.2021
“A Dream”
07.04.2021
More city!
28.03.2021
Todays piece:
24.03.2021
More sculptural attempts:
18.03.2021
Sometimes it goes fast.
17.03.2021
14.03.2021
12.03.2021
Photography and sculpture – more sketches.
07.03.2021
March Twilight:
03.03.2021
Sculptural attempts:
28.02.2021
Dreaming of this image in 110x210cm 🙂
25.02.2021
Sofa Setup:
Working title: “Subjective surroundings” or just “For the love of it”.
Working on it!
23.02.2021
Alfa Romeo
16.02.21
A joyful afternoon:
Emdrup Søpark #7
..and hooray. This years first publication is out. “Ydre Østerbro” 44 pages. Can be bought here: http://www.galleri.rocks 135dkr.
09.02.2021
Julestjerne
23.01.2021
Sometimes, just sometimes, it is there ❤
19.01.2021
Back to walking, back to the forest, in through the city. Back to simplicity. Back to trusting the fundamentals, the core, the image language, photography. Less doubt, more activity.
23.12.2020
20.12.2020
13.12.2020
Images of todays creative process:
05.12.2020
I walk through grass,
I walk Through rotten leaves.
Just to know the edges,
just to know where I am.
I walk along concrete squares
In and out alleys and bricks corridoors
Just to know the edges
just to know where I am.
When the morning calls through deep green leaves
I wake and se the sun outside my window
And the pounding chest of mine
call me time and time again
I come along
I breathe your breath
Right here so far far away
just to know the edges
just to know where I am
When the morning calls through deep green leaves
I wake and see the sun out side my window
and the pounding chest of mine
call me time time again
02.12.20
Sometimes like this evening I just love what I do.
And..: BIG NEWS: I am in a gallery! http://www.galleri.rocks and Reersøgade 6, st.th, 2100 København Ø. Hooray.
28.11.2020
Wonderful morning, pale, cold, – vivid rugged colours of late fall. Ten meters from my doorstep on my way to the shop for breakfast, a light pink rose, cold yellow brick buildings and the light of an autumn early morning. Into the workshop, rework with acryllic paint and two hours later todays labour is all kickstartet by the light pink rose and colours of late autumn. Big news coming up soon. Excited.
21.11.2020
More November-livingroom-flowerpots.
And a new song:
Stark shimmering yellow sparkles
Glow tight in november town
Meddles in the heavy fog
Tries me out, see my sight.
Glowing harsh in downtown me
The bright November cracks out there
Lend your hand, slightly raw, somehow pale.
Try me out, see my sight.
The nowhere now of autumn truth
Is all set in to tie me up
Free my mind, take me in
In nowhere land, I need a band.
Across the plains, in through the land
On pavement bricks, all colors of light
I see you there, everywhere
So try me out, just see my sight.
The nowhere now of autumn truth
Is all set in to tie me u p
Free my mind, take me in
In nowhere land, I need a band.
19.11.2020
November, november, november. Am writing songs and painting. Would love to further develop my reallife drawing. Still photograph the painting, and adore to play with colours and expression digitally, as I love the interplay of photography with reality. The many timely connotations that come along. Todays painting: Coleus.
05.11.2020
Had a good exhibition opening at Lundehuskirken this tuesday. Lots of good beloved friends turned up and all in all many good conversations and talks.
31.10.2020
Many people ask me what happens to the “original” painting. “Keep it” they say, “show it”. And some are surprised when I tell the the “original” dissapears. There is no original to me, the original is the emotional impact, shared between viewer and expression. Sometimes this expression is manifest online. Sometimes physical in a print. It is not important to which physical realm it belongs. It is an expression, a story of emotions and labour put into telling a story, visible in a finished work of art that can be approached in many mediums, as physical in frame and print. That is to me taking the consequence of the reality of the present serious. Walter Benjamin was writing in the thirties about the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. Seeing both the extreme dangers of exploitation, of how power could manifest itself to the cost of the many blind followers of a certain cultural or capitalist agenda, and he saw how these means of reproducing art in photography in cinema could be means of liberation of redelegating power to the many, not the few.
I’m not really much into power struggles and political pros and cons, I have my oppinions but what is important to me is existensial honesty. That you strive to in your life, to seek the moments where you are real and present, in body and soul. Those moments define you as a human being, in my opinion. That is an ongoing task to seek those moments, to seek the moments that fill your heart with presence. Making art for me is also part of this task. That is what I do. My metier. What I do best. My artwork reflect this task, this ongoing labour to follow your heart, to believe in love, to believe in life.
Our times is far beyond the notion of the original in my oppinion. To me in my work, it is important how I use the present technology as freely and undogmatic as possible. They are tools. The importance is is how I use them. Sometimes and often I am overwhelmed by the possibilities in digital technologies, I think that is natural. But not engaging them is fake in my oppinion or at least disengaged in our contemporary reality.
28.10.2020
From april 2020. Abstract acrylic painting. Painted looking at a photographic print of the sky above my house in North Copenhagen. The painting photographed, edited digitally and finally printed in a limited edition of five. Also part of my exhibition november 3rd at Lundehuskirken.
27.10.2020
From todays walk Bagsværd to Sorgenfri, north of Copenhagen.
26.10.2020
This weekends work. As often is my custom, made late at night, in that moment. An older photograph from the forest near Copenhagen. I paint abstract, this time multicoloured, while looking at the photographic print. Afterwards I photograph the still wet painting, this time in crude wolfram/indoor evening lighting. I edit the photograph of the painting in photoshop. And finally merged it with the original photograph from the forest. I love this part. Its like old time dark room work, the final image appears on the screen in front of me. It is a very creative process, tuning and editing the parts I find worth enhancing, and downscaling other parts of the image. Here the result:
And by the way:
My upcoming exhibition is set for opening on the 3rd of november, at 4pm. Lundehuskirken, Strødamvej 1, Copenhagen Ø.
Nikolaj Callesen 