Since 1996, when I took my exam at the Royal Art Academy in Stockholm, I have worked with painting.
Since 2001 I have worked with the issues such as paint, material and the painting as an object.
In order to understand painting, as in a historical perspective like in contemporary context,
I have examined the dynamics between the canvas and the paint. What is the relation between them? What happens if they disconnect from each other instead of intervene? Could they accept each other as a material? I have examined the covering layers of paint in a normal sense to see if it could be seen as a protecting hine or shell.

My workprocedure is to mix the beeswax in oilpaint and then to brush it from the outer border of the
canvas towards the middle with a spatula. Somewhere on the canvas there is an area left without paint - a hole, a wound or a revealed iinner sanctum. This could also be seen as a material-topography. In order of letting the paint and the canvas beeing the body of the work, it creates something like "The realism of paint". I have also examined the meaning of color nuances and thickness, and the mportance of the texture as opposed to the canvas and the frame. I have within this tried to explain the above problems and also tried to understand how it affects us when
appreciating the painting as an object. During the year 2001 I started to impose figurative elements in my paintings. I wanted to experience the sensation when you barely could see the image in the painting. Just an outline of a face for example. These paintings led to further works with the figurative image that I am developing.

In my current work, I intend to explore the figurative image in other ways, more emblematic. It deals with the relationship between the figurative and the abstract . In what way can the emblem participate in a decorative environment like in all sorts of patterns? What will happen when images from different timeperiods and social environments get mixed and treated without relating to internal differences?


Another question that I want to stress is in what way the decorative aspects affects the reading of the image, if the repetition of the emblem as a pattern diffuses the understanding of the paintings figurative element.
In this situation it could be interesting to make connections to other readings of imageinformation as for example the image of topography in a map, or images taken by a heat sensitive camera.

My workprocess by now is to scan my choice of image in the computer with the aid of Photoshop. Then I manipulate the image digitaly until I reach a satisfactory result. Then I draw that image on the canvas by projection.
I also work with my images on other objects than the canvas such as household goods and carpets.

Michael Schleu