Paris, France — While the internationally renowned bicycle race Le Tour de France kicked off today in the capital of Denmark, Copenhagen, it will come to a fast finish on the Champs-Elysées in Paris so it looks like a good time to pay a visit to the Danish Cultural Centre, La Maison du Danemark, on the Champs-Elysées which houses an exhibition space, Le Bicolore, a secret garden terrace and the wonderful Flora Danica restaurant featuring Danish specialties. La Maison du Danemark is currently hosting a colorful exhibition devoted to the Danish contemporary artist Jesper Christiansen, regarded as the finest painter of contemporary landscape painting in Denmark. In his studio in Odsherred, a peninsula in the northwestern part of Denmark’s highly scenic island of Zealand, he creates these intriguing at times mystery-filled paintings in which time, place and medium blend together and in which the written word plays a role as well.

A vase sits next to a book all looking out through a window towards the garden and the sea beyond. A bicycle stands in luxuriant vegetation in front of tall trees. Words appear on the canvases. While the landscape is the central player in his paintings elements of literature, music, architecture and all of the arts enter into the scene. His painting technique is unique for he paints each work over a long period of time with new themes and elements emerging while others disappear, painting with very small brush strokes on black canvases.

The show brings together some 25 canvases and watercolors and is accompanied a by a film on the artist by Nanna Rebekka and entitled How to Do Things with Words. The gallery space offers two wonderful views one onto the Champs-Elysées and another onto the inner gardens and terraces of the Flora Danica, an authentic Danish brasserie serving a host of Danish specialties including various takes on salmon.
©Trish Valicenti for The Gourmet Gazette
Exhibition until July 31st
lebicolore.dk
Maison du Danemark (The House of Denmark)
142 Avenue des Champs-Elysées
75008 Paris, France
+33 (0)1 56 59 17 43
and the Flora Danica at the same address
+33 (0)1 44 13 86 26
http://www.floradanica.fr/