Ann Lundén Jacoby

Man is a Journey

The writer Aksel Sandemose once said: Man is a journey. It has to be that way. Man travels through life, crosses his tracks, encounters happiness and sorrow, worries and hopes, meets other people and—all of the time—him self.
As in a mirror. Any journey is a journey into one’s own self.
Likewise, painting can be travelling. A journey of awareness which substantiates what one saw or lived. A journey where—provided you aim high enough—you cross borders, no matter how few miles you travel in the physical world.
For the painter Ann Lundén Jacoby, painting is a journey in which she only engaged a few years ago. You do not quite believe that when you see her paintings; they seem to come from far away, to be created by a deep consciousness, marked by seriousness and insight and a particularly sharp sense of mystery and simplicity.
Her paintings possess a wonderful mixture of tenderness, melancholia, quiet joy and poetic sensitivity. They are moving and silent. They require that you stop and watch them closely. They are naive and expressive at the same time. They are symbolic and poetic. Look at them slowly!
They represent landscapes and figures. There are trains, cars, roads, mountains and trees. If you look at the individual painting there is the presence of continuous, unspoken feelings and of a sudden silence; also, an indefinable impression of arrival or leave. Each painting is larger than itself. As were they a chapter in a very large story.
First and last, these paintings are about feelings and sensations so strong and genuine that you feel like letting your fingers pass over the coarse strokes to try out if that is quite the right way to understand them.
Ann Lundén Jacoby paints as if her life was at stake. She has it in her heart and it has to be told quite honestly, without any filter. One comes to think of the young Jens Søndergaard. Maybe the strong authenticity is the same.
You come to think of it: Nordic blood rolls in her veins—that is how the music of her colours plays. Subdued, whispering, like tones in a minor key. And, one has to add quickly, Ann Lundén Jacoby is a highly original artist, a rare bird of the kind that suddenly visits us from God knows where.
She has travelled a long way and wants to tell about it. It has been both a beautiful and a cruel journey. A journey of the kind where you end up being wiser about yourself and the world. It has not ended yet, and for each painting we come a step further on this inner journey. Further inside man and his inner landscapes. And the journey itself is its destination.

Ole Lindboe - January 2005
Editor of Magasinet Kunst and author of a long range of art books.