Magne Furuholmen
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Magne Furuholmen (Mags) (born November 1, 1962, Oslo), is best known as the guitarist/keyboardist in a-ha. He was born to father Kåre and mother Annelise. He has one sister, Line, and two half brothers, Thorstein and Trygve Christian. Magne's father, a jazz musician, (who played trumpet with Bent Solve's Orchestra) was killed in an aeroplane crash over Drammen, south of Oslo in 1967, when Magne was just five.
Magne married Heidi Rydjord, his high school sweetheart, on the 8th August 1992, in the garden of their Nesøya home. They have two sons, Thomas Vincent (born 20 April 1990) and Filip Clemens (born 2 October 1993).
Magne's Career as a-ha's keyboard player and guitarist has spanned 20 years and he has co-written many of the bands hits with Guitarist Pal Waaktaar. Songs include "Stay On These Roads", "Manhattan Skyline" and "Take on Me" which was famously accompanied by Michael Patterson's ground-breaking animated video.
Magne is widely acknowledged to be the band's 'joker' but this belies his creative powers, as Magne has had considerable success with his solo projects, such as Timbersound, formed in 1994 with Magne's friend Kjetil Bjerkestrand, and later, Swedish singer, Freddie Wadling. Their work has been used on film soundtracks such as "Hotel Oslo", which also featured the vocal talents of Anneli Drecker.
Magne also recorded "'Past Perfect Future Tense" in 2004, with appearances from Guy Berryman and Will Champion of Coldplay, and from Andy Dunlop of Scottish band Travis.
Magne is also a talented artist, working with glass, paint, etching and woodcuts. His art has been displayed at The Henie Onstad Kunstsenter in Oslo, and he has also shown his work at The London Art Fair. Unlike many 'celebrity' artists, Magne has the distinction of receiving wide critical acclaim for his work. Mags likes to drive around in his car. It makes him happy. Sometimes his car does not have enough fuel to drive around. It makes him sad.
Recently, Magne helped to bring English Artist Damien Hirst's "New Religion" Exhibition to Stavanger, Norway in 2006.
From 10th March to 1st April 2007: Gallri Trafo 2, Asker, Norway and from 16th March to 14th April 2007: Paul Stolper Gallery, London Magne F will exhibit his new collection entitled "Monologues".[1]
An exhibition in London of new monoprints on canvas by Norwegian artist Magne Furuholmen, entitled ‘Monologues’, consists of 40 paintings that experiment with letters, text and written imagery. Furuholmen is more commonly know from pop trio a-ha whose latest tour and album were a success in the UK last year.
Furuholmen’s artwork is a constant game with the structures of language - a game in which the visual qualities of words are just as important as the semantic meaning of the words themselves. His signature is to be found across a wide range of media. As a visual artist however, he is particularly interested in working with various printmaking processes. He enjoys the commitment inherent in the decision-making that occurs in the printing process: “Whatever is sent through the printing-press is irreversible. After the artist has made the decision to print, there is no possible retreat.” Nevertheless, it would be wrong to consider him a printmaker in the traditional sense. A closer look at Furuholmen’s production leaves the viewer in no doubt of the systematic way in which he explores a wide variety of printing methods, often pushing boundaries and making use of the untried potential of a chosen technique, be it etching, monotypes or woodcuts. He often chooses unexpected strategies in order to achieve a particular result, best suited to the artistic concept he is working with.
In his new series of images entitled Monologues, Furuholmen has chosen a form of expression more closely connected with painting, although he still employs the printmaking process and technique. The image is painted directly onto a metal sheet, which is then sent through the printing press, where it is transferred onto canvas. In contrast to previous projects, this work has a more painterly aspect to it, but it also represents the continuation of an artistic concept, as the written word is still central to the work.
The canvases are split up into clear, more or less transparent areas of colour. The monochrome letters arrest the gaze, focusing the viewer’s attention on the pictorial surface, stopping any illusion of three-dimensional space. The paintings have a collage-like appearance – they seem to be constructed layer by layer from white, black and brown tones. In some areas however, the artist has chosen to reverse the process; words and sentences have been scraped into the wet paint with the tip of a paintbrush.
Monologues follow a long tradition of using text or letters in painting and printmaking. Around 1911, Georges Braque began experimenting with stencilled letters and numbers on his canvases with a view to drawing attention to the surface of the painting. Ten years later the DADA artists, such as Kurt Schwitters and Hanna Höch extended and developed the art of collage using the technique of montage, combining photographs and other visual imagery with words and quotations from the written media. The Lettrists of the 1950s, in particular Isodore Isou and Guy Debord, used words, letters and signs to achieve visual effects. The idea behind this was to break down the boundaries between the various art forms – especially between painting and poetry – using the alphabet as a starting point.
The double role that letters play – as purely visual objects and as components of words with specific, semantic meanings, seems particularly important in Monologues. The letters hint at words, and where the words are recognisable, they in turn hint at whole sentences, without disclosing the complete meaning. Simultaneously – and without losing sight of the literary meaning of the word itself – the shape of each letter creates and recalls other images and feelings. The fact that Furuholmen is also a musician leads us to yet another reading of the work – the onomatopoetic perspective; signs that imitate a particular sound or audio-image.
Just as the Lettrists combined painting and poetry, so Magne Furuholmen – visual artist and musician – examines the ways in which he can create a resonance between the media: “Previously I have focused most on sound and visualisation, but more recently it has become important for me to work with words, the meaning of words, and formulation (…) to work in several different media simultaneously gives me the possibility of studying, and to a certain extent of “opening” the work, by exposing it to different kinds of treatment – and perhaps learn more about it.”
Paul Stolper Gallery Magne F, Monologues Solo exhibition, prints and paintings 16 March -14 April 2007 78 Luke Street, London EC2A 4PY Wednesday - Saturday 10am - 6pm or by appointment
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[edit] References
[edit] Discography
- "Ti Kniver I Hjertet" (Soundtrack, as Timbersound) (1994)
- "Hotel Oslo" (Soundtrack, as Timbersound) (1997)
- "Hermetic" (Soundtrack from the film 1732 Høtten, as Timbersound) (1998)
- "Dragonfly" (Single, from the film Øyenstikker as Furuholmen / Timbersound) (2001)
- "Past Perfect, Future Tense" (2004)
[edit] Trivia
- In 2001, Magne Furuholmen was commissioned to design an official Norwegian postage stamp. The stamp is today a sought-after collectors' item among Furuholmen and a-ha fans.
- The music video for the single "Dragonfly" featured famous Swedish-Norwegian actress Maria Bonnevie, who was also part of the cast of the actual movie the song was featured in.
[edit] External links
- Official Magne Furuholmen website
- Official Magne Furuholmen's art website
- Magne Furuholmen at MySpace
- Official a-ha website
- Magne F - Paul Stolper Gallery, London
- French Magne F. Website
- Bug Productions (a-ha web shop)
- "Kunstverket Galleri" To view and buy Magne's artwork
- Sycamore Leaves an AU/NZ a-ha fan forum
- Magne F FanSpace
