Paintings 1963 - 2000

“I’m not unfamiliar with the abstract [in painting], nor the naturalistic, the symbolic or the romantic. But I try to put these together in a new way, as a tool to help penetrate… the heart of substance.

The colours I am using are the colours of the elements to me, so perhaps in my spectrum I’m painting naturalistically; but the colours have their symbolic side too. The red suggests matter, blue the opposite; yellow is energy and green transformation. The point is to put them together in a way that provokes energy… for that is what concerns me most – the flow of energy, inside

and outside.”

Frans Widerberg, 1986

Self-Portrait 1976, Oil on canvas 91 x 76cm

Collection of the National Museum, Oslo