I create pictures using my life experiences mingled with many times
my present inner feelings and a simplicity by some regarded to be
the Scandinavian way to paint. By putting the title under the image
I let the words interact with the design above - making the viewer’s brain
produce the full picture. Sometimes I get the question about how long time
it does take me to make one of my pieces. The answer is ¨A Lifetime¨.
It has taken all my experiences to be able to work the way I create.

Over the years, and they have now passed 20, since I started to paint I have heard comments like these. It looks like Picasso, Matisse, Van Gogh, Monet etc. That is flattering but it has another side too. Some people think that I am copying the above Masters. That should be reasonable to believe if I had been exposed to these artist ways of expressions. But I have never attended an art class nor studied any art history or whatever. Though I once went to a class to study "kroki". If that is an entirely Swedish word I don't know. But I went there to get a hang of how to draw the human body with correct proportions etc. I remember the class as boring and left it.

When I see my art in the rear mirror, I understand that many of the individual pieces are time documents of my whereabouts in life. If you think my art looks like the old masters,
be my guest. This is the way I paint. You can rest assure that no one of my pieces are the other one like. Just like my life, it never gets boring.

But I can of course take any of my paintings and do 100 more look a-likes...

Björn Sjögren


SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
The Magnificent Mile, Chicago 2008
50th & France, Fine Art & Craft Show, Edina, MN, 2008
The Artist Project, Chicago 2008
Adieb Khadoure Gallery, Santa Fe 2008
James Schwalbach Gallery, Baraboo, Wisconsin, 2007
The Pump House, LaCrosse, Wisconsin, 2006
Ward-Nasse Gallery, New York, NY
Promenade of Art, Arlington Heights, Chicago, IL, 2004
Art in the Park Oak Park, Chicago, IL, 2003 & 2004
Art in the Park, Appleton, WI, 2003 & 2004
Art in the Park Skokie, Chicago, IL, 2003
Beattie Park Art Show, Rockford, IL, 2003
Art in the Park, Bayfield, WI, 2003
Art in the Park, Watertown, WI, 2003
Fall Jazz & Fine Art Show, Stillwater, MN, 2003
50th & France, Fine Art & Craft Show, Edina, MN, 2003