to enter a room clad with paintings by sune christiansen is to venture into a universe of joie-de-vivre, unbridled colour, rich humour and outlandish, whirlwind fantasy. created in oil pastel, acrylic and industrial enamel, his huge paintings effervesce and bulge with bold patterns and a myriad of shapes both big and small. elongated, polka-dot, baggy-panted harlequins and other children’s-drawing-book characters rub shoulders with fantastical, cobra-like creatures, plants, wobbly brick buildings – you name it – and variegated,  jigsaw-like backdrops reminiscent of the ornate cityscapes of the austrian artist/architect friedensreich hundertwasser. 

but sune christiansen is impossible to pin down. his art resists facile definition. sometimes every square centimetre of the tapestry-like canvas is crammed to explosion point. sometimes it looks like it might once have been, but the artist seems to have cauterised half of the rich detail away, leaving familiar elements more detached, sketchier, and gleaming against a bleach-white backdrop. similarly, while most of his paintings are ginormous, there are also small ones, where elements seem to have fallen off bigger canvases and formed their own motifs – simple, sensuous blobs of lime green, burgundy and lapis blue, for example – or isolated harlequins morphed uncomfortably into what look like letters of the alphabet in a children’s primer. unfettered by rules, sune christiansen seems to be constantly evolving, never sitting still and never taking anything for granted – and overflowing with imagination. the apparent freedom and effortlessness in the paintings are actually the result of painstaking preparatory sketches on his ipad, a highly-disciplined work schedule and astute self-criticism – he thinks nothing of ditching a finished work if it does not live up to his high standards.

it was only a few years ago that his online-sales success prompted sune christiansen to turn his painting sideline into a full-time career. the number of sales and exhibitions since then suggest that this was a not unwise decision.