Lars Stenberg graduated with an honours degree in Fine Art from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee, Scotland in 1985. He has been a professional artist since then. Known for his colourful landscape painting and for his inspiring workshops, he also works with digital media, audio and assemblage, and has undertaken several large-scale public art projects in the UK and Australia. Most of his large acrylic or oil paintings are made in his studio in Ballarat from studies and photographs he has made on the trail. He sketches using an iPad.
Influenced by Stéphane Mallarmé’s exhortation to “Paint, not the thing, but the effect it produces”, his paintings are about how it feels to be in the landscape, not just about how the landscape looks. There is an element of synaesthesia in his working practice, as he sees (and hears) his paintings in terms of rhythm, tonality and colour, just as a composer might think about a piece of music. In a sense, the paintings are abstract musical compositions that coincidentally appear as painted landscapes.
The strong rhythmic elements in his work are a direct result of moving through the landscape on foot. He often combines his love of long-distance walking with sketching and observation of the changing seasons, weather and topography. While in his younger days he spent a lot of time on trails in France, Spain and the Pacific Northwest in the US and Canada, he now prefers to get to know a place intimately, and to concentrate on the area around his home in the Victorian Goldfields. This is something his knees thank him for.