Henrik Martensen has his own unique visual universe rooted in the romantic landscape painting.That does not mean that Martensen paint in a romantic style, but he uses these same effects as the traditional romantic landscape painting, namely in the form of light,air,mist and fog, and as in the romantic landscape painting the works of Martensen are a projection of subjective feelings, in which a specific atmosphere occurs.There are at Martensen an immediate cult of the sublime in nature, but in its quiet simplicity vulnerability also heralds the mystery.It is precisely this tension between the earthly the civilisation, the imaginary and the spiritual that makes the works remain as interesting and present.
Henrik Martensen (b. 1956) is a self-taught painter with an obvious visual talent. In his art , he stands on the shoulders of the Romantic painters who cultivated nature as the great , God created gift to humanity . His ability to depict natural phenomena is second to none . It emerged last of the group exhibition Panorama , which was shown at the Johannes Larsen Museum , Denmark , in the spring of 2016. As few other painters of his time, Henrik Martensen mastering the mimetic method , the ability to transplant nature’s manifestations , so they appear exactly as real phenomena on the surface. He usually work serially and in both large and small formats , and he has a special fondness for clouds , air and sea, so subjects are often shrouded in a spherical , blue color.
MA . Lisbeth Bonde ,Chairman of AICA Denmark – Danish Association of Art Critics .
Henrik Martensen takes up a distinctive position in modern Danish painting. He draws upon the 17th century romanticism and convincingly manages to express difficult artistic challenges, such as capturing a sense of the sublime, but viewed through the cleft lenses of modern day society.In Martensens paintings one immediately feels at home, but soon one gets the unsettling feeling something is wrong. Martensens paintings opens more doors than they closes, and asks more questions than the answers.
I curated a large exhibition – PANORAMA – in which Martensen played a major role.
Christian Kortegaard Madsen, Master of Arts, Curator at the Johannes Larsen Museum, Kerteminde, Denmark